


bloodroot, larkspur, lily-arum

by Aesoleucian



Category: Naruto
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, I'm just here to see a disabled mentally ill kid slowly becoming a hero for the entire earth, PTSD, tired of tagging for how orochimaru is a girl. WHATEVER
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-02-08 15:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 63,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12867672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: A hand pats his shoulder lightly, and Orochimaru says, “I won’t purposefully make you remember the most traumatic event in your life so I can feel superior again,” she says. It sounds like she’s trying to use a soothing voice. “Friends?”If this is what being Orochimaru’s friend is like, Itama really doesn’t want to be her enemy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Simaetha(e) said I should post this for the sake of "more good Orochimaru fic." Anyway this first bit goes PRETTY HARD ON THE PTSD. Obviously this is an alternate universe where instead of getting Murdered by the Uchiha Itama just got tortured. Also he has kind of a lot of humiliation/self-loathing feelings about not being able to walk, so this could be unpleasant for folks who feel the same. Or maybe it will be nice? It is hard for me to say because I can walk pretty much all of the time, but it's still based on my experience with disability.

Itama’s anxious today, because his two brothers are out on a mission. It’s not a battle, but they could still get hurt! There _could_ be Uchiha survivors at the Tsukikage village, and if one of them is sneaky enough they could kill someone, and Itama’s brothers are the youngest ones in the group so they’re the best targets—!

He breathes in deeply and counts to eight, then breathes out. He breathes in. He breathes out. Hashirama and Tobirama are really good shinobi (unlike Itama) and Touka won’t let anything happen to them. She’s big and strong and she cares about them a lot.

He fidgets with his brush and tries not to chew on it, and eventually he decides even though he’s not good at drawing he’ll draw them coming home safe, like a good luck charm. There’s Tobirama with his spiky white hair, and Hashirama with a black bowl on his head (oops) and a coat, and Touka with a blob sticking out of her head, and her impressive armor. Actually they should all be wearing armor. Itama forgot.

Surata-san comes with a couple of leaves from outside (she’s a couple minutes late today, that’s bad luck) and she sits down at the kotatsu next to him. “Stop fidgeting,” she says. He makes himself be very still, even though it’s a little like torture. And he _was_ tortured, so he knows what he’s talking about. “Leaf on forehead.” He takes the leaf and sticks it to his forehead with chakra. It’s even easy by now. “Give me your hand.” She grabs his hand when he’s not fast enough, and slices open his finger with a knife. “Now heal it.”

He tries not to frown, because that will make it harder to keep the leaf on his forehead. It’s hard not to frown, because it takes a lot of concentration to heal. Maybe it will be easier once he’s allowed to use both his hands. After about ten minutes there’s not even a scar left, and he looks up hopefully. She flicks the leaf with her finger. It stays right where it is, so she nods. “Now you’ll heal me. It’s harder to heal a body you don’t already know inside and out.” She makes a little cut on her thumb and holds it out. “Now don’t let that leaf fall, boy.” It does take him longer, she was right. He can’t feel what’s going on, so he has to look harder. Or, not look. The thing that’s not looking, that’s what he has to do.

He’s glaring fiercely at Surata-san’s thumb when he hears Hashirama shouting outside: “We’re baaaaack!” He looks up suddenly. The leaf falls off his forehead. Surata-san hisses. When he looks down again he sees that her skin is turning red and puffing up, like she’s been burned. “Sorry, Surata-san!” he says, biting his lip.

Without saying anything she takes his hand, the one that he healed before, and gives it four hard smacks with the flat side of her knife. Tears form in his eyes, but he bears it silently. “Sorry,” he whispers again.

Before she can tell him to start healing her again or how disappointed she is, Hashirama throws open the door. “Baby brother!” he says. “We brought a new friend!” Surata-san glares at him, and he rearranges his excited face into a repentant face. “We’re very sorry for interrupting Itama’s lesson, Surata-san. But can he meet the new friend?”

“Very well,” says Surata-san. She stands up and starts healing her own hand. “Tomorrow, Itama-kun, you will need to demonstrate better control.” And she walks out like an angry wading bird.

Hashirama grimaces at her back as she goes out the door. But Itama smiles, and Hashirama smiles back at him. “So you know we went to the Tsukikage village,” Hashirama says. Itama nods. “Well, it wasn’t dangerous, so you shouldn’t have worried. But also we found someone, a survivor! I think she’s about your age. Tobirama has her. BROTHERRRR. WHERE ARE YOU.”

Tobirama pokes his head in. He looks cross. “Don’t shout, Brother. I was just going the long way around so Surata-san wouldn’t tell me off for something.” When he walks all the way in, Itama can see that there’s a girl leaning on him. She has fine black hair that falls over most of her face, and she looks pale even next to Tobirama. She probably can’t even see right now, there’s so much hair in her face. She looks exhausted, and her nice white kimono is covered in soot. Did her village get burned down? That _is_ the sort of thing the Uchiha would do.

“Um, hi,” he says. “I’m Senju Itama. What’s your name?”

She moves her head a little bit and he sees one yellow eye looking at him from behind her hair. “Tsukikage Orochimaru.” Her voice is raspy, like she breathed too much smoke.

“Isn’t that a boy’s name?” asks Hashirama with interest.

“It’s _my_ name,” she hisses, turning a little to glare at him. “Are you going to let me sit down, or are you going to keep interrogating me until I fall over?”

“We weren’t interrogating you!” says Hashirama, while Tobirama helps her sit down on one of the cushions. She slumps over her own knees. “We were just trying to be friendly!”

“And you could show a little bit of gratitude,” Tobirama says. “We did save your life.”

“Thanks,” she snarls. “I’m so grateful to be here in an unfamiliar place now that my entire family is dead.”

“Um, maybe we should go talk to Father,” says Hashirama, smiling at her nervously. “See you around!” He grabs Tobirama by the arm and almost runs out of the room. That leaves Itama alone with the girl, who is _not_ a new friend, she’s scary and possibly will try to kill him. He looks desperately at the open door, hoping Hashirama will come back for him. Then he glances over at her. She looks like she’s glaring at him under all the hair.

“You can leave too,” she says. “I’m sure we’ll both be happier if I’m left alone.”

“W-well, I actually can’t leave,” he says. He scoots out from under the kotatsu until she can see what’s left of his legs. “I’d like to, because you’re really really scary, but I guess, um, I’m watching you to make sure you don’t steal anything or set the house on fire?” He shouldn’t have mentioned her setting things on fire. She doesn’t look _that_ much like an Uchiha (mostly because she’s wearing white) but he’s having a hard time not thinking about other things that have been set on fire, like his, his entire, his _him_. He can feel tears forming in his eyes again. He looks down and carefully scoots back under the blanket.

“I’m not going to destroy the house or steal anything,” says Orochimaru. “That would be stupid.” She sounds a little less angry now, maybe. “I have nowhere else to go, and I can barely walk.” She goes quiet for a while. Itama tries to ignore her and stick leaves to both of his hands. Then she says, “What happened to your legs?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“I’ll find out somehow,” she says. “I’m very good at finding things out.”

“What do you think it was?” he mutters. “Uchiha.” The image is already coming back to him. Oh no.

“Give me details.”

“It’s not your business.” His voice trembles. He hates it.

“It’s my business what they’ve done and why you won’t leave me in peace.”

“Fine! They cornered me and they were going to kill me and then they said n-no-one was coming to help me anyway so they might as well have some _fun_ with me so they c-cut me and burned me and by the time anyone found me my legs were _ruined_. Is that what you wanted to hear?” He’s hyperventilating now, sobbing and dripping snot into his lap. It’s like he can feel everything again. He can even smell his own flesh burning. And he’s shaking and he can’t move and he wishes they _did_ kill him.

“They’re dead, aren’t they? I’d hate to think they were the same ones who cut my father open. They did it right in front of me, too.” Her voice seems muffled, but she could be talking about what she got at the market for how upset she sounds. “It turns out human guts look just like every other animal’s. And my mother—”

“Please stop,” Itama whispers.

“I thought it was only fair I told you my story,” says Orochimaru. “Since you were kind enough to tell me yours. No lies, even.”

“I don’t w-wanna hear about it.” He manages to clench his fists around the blanket. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, how you’re not even upset. You’re probably some kind of evil spirit that’s been sent to torture me.”

“Don’t be so full of yourself,” says Orochimaru scornfully. “Who’d send an evil spirit to torture _you_?” She sniffs. “After seeing how miserable you are, I feel better already.” Itama wishes he could shout for Hashirama, but his lungs aren’t working right, he can barely breathe, and he feels like Hashirama wouldn’t come anyway, like he’s not even real. There’s a sound behind him, shuffling. A hand pats his shoulder lightly, and Orochimaru says, “I won’t purposefully make you remember the most traumatic event in your life so I can feel superior again,” she says. It sounds like she’s trying to use a soothing voice. “Friends?”

If this is what being Orochimaru’s friend is like, Itama _really_ doesn’t want to be her enemy. “S-sure,” he mumbles. Orochimaru crawls back to her cushion, and Itama lies down on the table, exhausted and still having to try hard not to think about _it_. Plus now his back prickles with the prediction-memory of Orochimaru’s knife sticking into it. He keeps breathing. In. Out.

After a while Hashirama comes back with Father, who says, “You’re cleared to stay with the healer Surata, Tsukikage. You can have a week to recover, since you’re not too badly injured, and then you’ll be an active-duty shinobi. How old are you?”

“Almost fourteen, Senju-sama.” Her raspy voice is perfectly deferential and polite. “I’m already trained with poisons and most varieties of shuriken. I’m best at infiltration missions.”

“You’ll be on the front lines,” says Father, and Itama hears him leave.

“Are you okay?” whispers Hashirama in Itama’s ear. “I should’ve left Tobirama with you. She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

Itama tries to sniff more snot back into his nose. “No.”

“Hey, are you crying? What’s wrong, baby brother?” Hashirama starts rubbing soothing circles on his back.

“She made me think of… what happened. Can you take me outside? I don’t want to be in a room with her any more.”

Hashirama scoops him up and starts to leave, but the girl behind them says, “Why is he sending me to the front lines? That’s _stupid_.”

“All children go to the front lines,” says Tobirama’s expressionless voice from near the door. He’s always hated it, but he won’t ever show he’s upset. “How else would we know if they’re prepared for war?”

“By testing them in missions that won’t get them killed,” says Orochimaru. “I can’t believe you think that garbage is true.” Hashirama carries Itama away out of the house, and the last thing he hears is her faint voice saying, “In _my_ clan children run courier missions and bodyguard duty for…”

When they get out into the sunlight and Hashirama sets him down on the grass, he breathes out a shaky sigh of relief. “She’s _awful_ , Brother. She said she wanted to be my friend, after… after. I think she was probably lying.”

“Maybe that’s just how people act in her clan?” says Hashirama. “Or maybe she’s, you know, stricken with grief.” She didn’t seem very grieved. Itama doesn’t say it because he’d have to tell Hashirama what she has to grieve about, and he’s trying not to think about it.

“Well, I guess we’d better be extra nice to her, then.” It takes a lot of effort to say it because he doesn’t _want_ to be nice to her, he wants to make her leave the village and never come back. But he knows being nice to people who have had someone die is the right thing to do, even if they _are_ scary. “She’s, uh, she’s not going to get any better living with Surata-san.”

Hashirama twists his mouth. “True. Maybe we can help her be less. Hm. Weird and creepy. We’ll be _extra_ nice.” Then he smiles at Itama and says, “Do you want to pick flowers for her? I’ll give them to her, but I know you like picking them out.”

It’s late enough in the summer that there aren’t a lot of wildflowers, but there are enough to make a really nice arrangement. Itama likes going around in Hashirama’s arms, pointing at the prettiest flowers. It’s fun enough that he usually forgets to hate himself for not being able to walk.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter we see how much it sucks to be a kid and have to go to war. not-very-graphic descriptions of injuries; implied domestic abuse (fuck you butsuma)
> 
> on a more adorable note, finally some kid banter and brotherly hugs.

Hashirama reports back that Orochimaru said the flowers were ‘sweet.’ “I can’t tell if she was making fun of me or not,” he says. “She smiled, but in, you know, a _creepy_ way.”

“She does everything in a creepy way,” Itama points out. “At least she knows we want her to like us, now.”

“You’re right,” says Hashirama, smiling. “I bet she’ll be friendly in no time!”

That’s about as likely as the Uchiha becoming friendly in no time, but Itama doesn’t contradict his brother. Hashirama’s optimism is comforting. Mostly.

They’re outside again, since it’s such a nice day. Hashirama and Tobirama are sparring, because it’s the easiest way to get some time to talk with Itama. Plus, he can usually give them some critique on technique. It makes him feel useful. “Tobirama, you’re always a little slow when he attacks your left side.”

Tobirama grunts to show he heard, and starts correcting himself. “She may not be friendly, but she seems to have a stronger grasp of strategy than Father. Not that would be hard. Sweet and honorable to die for your clan, my _ass_.” He takes a vicious swing at Hashirama, who jumps back in surprise.

“Brother, don’t let your anger affect your fighting. That’s the—”

“I know,” snarls Tobirama. “But I don’t see what the point is. We hardly gain any advantage on the battlefield by having a few extra bodies. And bodies is all they are. He can’t seriously expect a seven-year-old to have much in the way of skills, even if he has been training since he was four.”

Neither Itama nor Hashirama says anything to that. The hole where Kawarama used to be is still raw in all three of them. For a while there’s just the sound of his brothers’ swords ringing against each other, and then Hashirama says, “We’ll change it. One day I’ll be clan head, and then children won’t have to fight. Maybe no-one will have to fight.”

“If the Uchiha are any more competent than Father at understanding the premise of a peace treaty.”

Hashirama laughs, like it’s not incredibly scary, what Tobirama just said. “You talk like a dictionary when you’re upset.”

“Dictionary, my ass,” says Itama.

It makes Hashirama laugh so hard he doesn’t block Tobirama’s strike, and Tobirama has to pull himself back to avoid hitting his brother. “Really,” he says. But he looks a little amused.

“Is this how the clan head’s sons spend their time?”

They all look around, and see Orochimaru coming up on the clearing.

“I take it that was a rhetorical question,” says Tobirama, “seeing as you’re observing for yourself exactly what the clan head’s sons are doing.” He’s shut his face down again, like he always does for everyone but his brothers and sometimes Touka. And their mother, it used to be.

“Well identified,” says Orochimaru. “I wanted to see if anyone would like to spar with me. It might help me get a feeling for the battlefield I’ll be dying on in six days.”

Tobirama steps forward. Itama’s a little surprised, actually. He would think Tobirama wouldn’t want to engage with Orochimaru at all, but maybe he’s decided he needs to protect his brothers from her. “Go and sit down, Hashirama.” He sounds like he’s about to say, ‘I’ll take care of her,’ like she’s a threat he needs to deal with. Which is kind of silly, because probably the Uchiha will deal with her before he ever needs to.

Itama winces. That was an awful thing to think.

“What kind of sword do you use?” asks Hashirama curiously. He sounds like he’s trying to be a little friendlier than Tobirama, at least.

“I don’t use a sword,” says Orochimaru with a sigh. “I told him my specialty is poisons and shuriken. I want to know if that’s any good at all against kenjutsu.” She makes a face at Tobirama. “And don’t give me that look, I don’t have any poisons on me yet. I lost everything when you so kindly rescued me from my village. Besides, against an _ally_ I’d use a mild paralytic at worst.”

Tobirama falls into a ready stance and waits for her to do the same. After a moment, she raises her eyebrows and vanishes somewhere using the body flicker technique. “She’s been concealing her chakra since she got here,” says Tobirama. “I thought it was str—” He breaks off to deflect a few throwing stars from somewhere in the trees, and scowls. “The battlefield won’t have anywhere to hide, Tsukikage.”

“I’ll just have to be faster than you, then.” Tobirama barely dodges three needles that bury themselves in the ground next to his feet. Suddenly Orochimaru is next to him again, and he has to parry against a kunai.

“Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven.”

“What?” snaps Tobirama.

“I scratched you with a needle. I’m counting down until you pass out. Twenty-three. Twenty-two. Be glad I’m giving you this much warning. Nineteen.”

But Tobirama is just as fast as she is. The next time she flickers away, he follows her, and manages to get her in a hold that prevents her from reaching any more of her weapons. He holds his sword to her throat, and she sighs. “Yield. You only had fifteen seconds to go, too.”

“That’s what happens when you tell your opponent they’ve been poisoned,” says Tobirama scornfully. “They put even more effort into getting revenge on you while they still can.”

“I want to face you next,” says Hashirama. “I’ve never met anyone who used shuriken as their primary weapons!”

“Does everyone in this clan use a full-length sword?”

“You can’t deny that the reach is useful,” Hashirama tells her cheerfully. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

 

Orochimaru comes home from her first battle badly injured, just like Itama feared she would. _Was_ he afraid for her? He was, truly. He’s starting to think that she doesn’t hurt people because she hates them, just because that’s what she does. She’s very good at it, and he doesn’t really like her, but he feels a little sympathy for her. He might want her to go away, but he doesn’t want her to _die_. The only ones he wants to die are those—

He learns that she was injured when a tired man dumps her in front of Itama on the porch and says, “The infirmary is full up with real patients and the medics are busy. Surata says do what you can.”

Itama is too paralyzed by surprise and nerves to remember to ask how his brothers are. Not dead, or the man would have said something. He forces his brain to concentrate on Orochimaru instead. She’s bleeding from a deep cut on her abdomen (she wasn’t even given any armor!), and from the bruises on her face it looks like she was knocked out by a blunt weapon. The cut comes first, since Itama hasn’t learned how to deal with head trauma yet.

So first he has to clean it by pulling out the dirt. It’s a smaller version of earth release, which he’s very glad is in his clan’s bloodline. It takes a lot of concentration, though, because he can’t pull it out too fast or he might open the wound even more… got it! Now he can start closing up the severed veins. There’s noise going on somewhere but he _can’t_ break his concentration. Surata-san might deserve a minor burn (no she doesn’t) but he can’t let himself hurt a real patient.

By the time the cut is mostly closed, Itama is exhausted and trembling. His hands, his coat, and his lap blanket are all spotted with varying amounts of blood and he’s ready to pass out—but Orochimaru is definitely going to live.

 

He wakes up and sees yellow eyes staring down at him from inside a cloud of darkness. He yelps and tries to scoot away, but his arms won’t support his weight right now so he just falls flat on his back again. “Did you heal me?” asks Orochimaru’s raspy voice.

“Y-yes? Why do you look like you’re going to murder me?”

Orochimaru leans backward out of his sight and offers a hand to help him sit up. He takes it. “That’s just how my face looks,” she says. “Plus, you probably think everyone wants to murder you since you have no chance of getting away if they tried.”

Itama doesn’t feel comfortable with Orochimaru having _any_ insight into his psyche, much less one he hasn’t put into words yet. “I did heal you, yes. The medics were busy with _real_ patients, the shinobi said. You’re expendable, so they gave you to me.”

“I’m not expendable,” mutters Orochimaru, glaring past Itama’s shoulder. “I’m a valuable resource that’s being wasted on the front lines. I _told_ you it was an idiotic idea to send me there.”

“No-one disagreed with you, Tsukikage-san,” he says. “Except Father, obviously.”

“And the captain whose unit I was in. And the other shinobi in that unit. And the medics who left me with _you_.”

“Um. How long have you been awake?”

“Less than an hour. It took a while to sit up because of the pain.” She gives him what’s probably meant to be a significant look.

“If you’re complaining about being in pain, I can’t really help you. I already completely exhausted my chakra trying to heal you.”

She smiles coldly, but all her smiles are cold so maybe it’s genuine. “Thanks.”

Itama swallows and looks away, out into the village. It feels like looking at a picture, because he can’t go there, really. But somewhere in that picture are his brothers, who can take either him or Orochimaru away from here so he can stop being scared that she’s going to stab him or suck his blood or hypnotize him with her snake eyes.

Finally Tobirama does show up, still in his blood-splattered armor and limping a little. “Itama?” he says.

Itama smiles gratefully at him. “Brother! You’re all right.”

“Are _you_ all right? You look like hell.”

“He pushed himself to chakra exhaustion to heal me,” says Orochimaru. “He does seem very intent on doing the job right.”

“You’re welcome,” mumbles Itama.

“Do you want to go inside?” Tobirama asks, kneeling down by Itama. “You’ll have to wash up and change clothes first.”

“Please,” he whispers. His face is hot with humiliation, because Tobirama might not care but Orochimaru is _watching_ him and she already thinks he’s weak and helpless (easy prey!) but now she’s _analyzing_ him and his brother and he hates it and he hates making Tobirama carry him around. And he’s _tired_ and a little hysterical and he’s crying into Tobirama’s shoulder as his brother picks him up.

Tobirama sets him down by the bucket at the back of the house to wash up, and leaves to give him privacy (brushing his hand over Itama’s shoulders for comfort). Around the front he can hear Orochimaru and Tobirama talking, but he can’t understand what they’re saying. He hopes it’s not about him. But he’s glad they’re not here watching him have a panic attack.

Hashirama turns up soon after—he always comes back last because even though he’s thirteen he’s a squad captain and has to make reports to Father—and takes Itama inside to eat. Somehow, Orochimaru ends up eating with them. It might be because she doesn’t want to go back to Surata-san’s house, or maybe she can’t really walk right now. She eats very daintily, and with very good manners. It’s _weird,_ because it’s the only feminine thing about her. Except maybe her love of poisons? Itama has heard that poison is a woman’s weapon, but none of the women that he knows use it, and it only makes sense for any assassin to poison someone. He doesn’t _think_ all assassins are women, but he could be wrong about this.

Hashirama waves his hand in front of Itama’s face, and Itama realizes he’s been staring at a clump of rice on the end of his chopsticks for a while, too tired to stop his train of thought and actually move his hand. “Sorry, I was lost in thought.”

“What were you thinking about?” asks Hashirama cheerfully.

“Assassins.” Tobirama stifles a snort on the other side of the table. “Not all assassins are women, right?”

“Certainly not,” says Tobirama. “It’s about evenly split.”

“That’s not true,” Orochimaru says. “And you couldn’t know for sure anyway. A good assassin’s identity is never revealed, so nine out of ten assassins have an unknown gender.”

“Are you saying that nine out of ten assassins are good?” asks Tobirama, disbelieving.

The two of them argue about it for the rest of the meal, with Hashirama putting in comments and Itama adding his own (not very well-informed) arguments when he can muster words. He’s kind of starting to think Orochimaru is okay by the time Father comes home, looking down his nose at her.

“I see you survived your first battle,” he says. He’s irritated. “And you’re in my house, eating my food and wearing my children’s clothing.”

“I lent it to her, Father,” says Tobirama. “She would have gotten blood on the floors otherwise.”

Father gives Tobirama a look that probably means he’ll be beaten a bit later for presuming to invite a bloody orphan into the clan head’s house, and then he says, “Get out.”

Orochimaru quickly rises and bows to him before running to the door to get her shoes.

 

That night Itama heals Tobirama’s limp, a cut on his arm, and a few new bruises. Tobirama holds him tight and glares into the darkness as if all that talk of assassins gave him ideas.

“Don’t,” murmurs Hashirama. He must be thinking the same thing. “It’s not worth it if you’re caught.”

“You’d still be clan head, wouldn’t you? No-one would ever think you knew about it. You could still fix things, even if I…”

“I’m not losing any more brothers,” whispers Itama, clenching his fist around a handful of Tobirama’s sleeve. “Find another way.”

Tobirama just sighs into Itama’s hair.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orochimaru talks about how her clan head died. And snakes. Mostly snakes. ALSO thanks to dyingUta for pointing out that there is in fact self-harm in this chapter. It's Orochimaru, for spurious purposes.

Orochimaru doesn’t come back to the house, not even when Father is out. Itama only sees her when his brothers take him out to watch them train. Sometimes she spars with them—she and Tobirama have a sort of long-standing contest of inventing really impressive ninjutsu—and sometimes she sits by Itama, patiently grinding up plants into poisonous paste.

Because he would rather hear her talk than sit in silence wondering what scary things she’s thinking about, he asks her to tell him about her clan.

“It was better than yours, I’ll say that. The clan head, my aunt, understood that you don’t train children by letting the Uchiha murder them. She was very powerful, and she knew more kinds of ninjutsu than anyone else. And she was friends with the great snake boss, Manda.”

“But now she’s…?”

Orochimaru’s mouth twists as she scrapes aconite paste into a clay jar. “It took Uchiha Tajima and his two sons together to kill her. She didn’t have a chance to summon Manda, or the battle would have gone very differently. It was a good strategy, forcing her to be constantly on guard to keep her hands occupied.” Her eyes flick upward to Itama’s brothers, who are all the way across the clearing. “I inherited the contract. I just need to go back and find it.”

“Are you sure it didn’t get burned?” whispers Itama. “The whole village was burned when they got there, I heard. And you’re the only one who survived…?”

“Oh, I’m not.” Orochimaru shoots a dark look at Hashirama and Tobirama. “There were three others, all adult shinobi. They went after the Uchiha village. They told me to stay put, as if they could have known there would be a search party. They left me to die because I couldn’t walk, because I couldn’t help them get their revenge. I imagine there was a serious case of waterborne poisoning in the Uchiha village a few weeks ago.”

Itama watches her start grinding up another bowl full of aconite leaves. She barely seems affected by her own story—even he feels some strong emotion at _they left me to die because I couldn’t walk_ —but he knows by now how good she is at hiding her true emotions. “Thank you for telling me.”

She smiles at him with half-lidded eyes, tilting her head to let her hair fall over her shoulders like rain. With that expression on her face, she looks startlingly gentle. “I trust you to keep my secrets, Itama-kun.”

Confused, he flushes and looks away. She probably means that if he doesn’t, he’ll find himself suddenly very ill after the next meal he eats. “Um, when are you going to find the snake contract? I’m sure Surata-san wouldn’t be too concerned if you disappeared for a day. I’d tell her you were in the mountains looking for more herbs.”

“How kind. But I’ll do it in my own time, in my own way. Can you get me another handful of leaves, please?”

He almost reaches into the bag, until he remembers that Orochimaru is wearing two pairs of gloves _and_ a thin layer of chakra just over her skin. “That’s a very unsubtle way to try to kill me,” he says, hoping it was a joke.

She just laughs. “I’m working up to subtlety.”

 

Orochimaru’s idea of subtlety, apparently, is to crawl into the village almost a week after a great battle, injured just enough that she couldn’t be expected to walk, and ask bitterly if there are any healers who will take her. It seems to _work_ , too. Surata-san thinks she’s just trying to get attention, and pushes her off on Itama again. Which of course is exactly what she wanted.

“You’re lucky Surata-san didn’t actually want to treat you,” he tells her. “It’s pretty obvious that these are self-inflicted.” The wounds on her legs are deep, still not entirely scabbed over—they couldn’t have been made more than two days ago. How was it her plan to do this to herself? “That was a very stupid idea, Tsukikage-san.”

“Please, Itama-kun, call me Orochimaru.” She smiles at him again. He can’t help but be horribly confused about the difference between the way she acts now and the first time they met.

“Uh, right. It was a stupid idea, Orochimaru-san, because you had no guarantee who would treat your wounds or if anyone would at all. Gambling with a permanent loss of mobility is no small matter!”

“Yes, you’d know, wouldn’t you. Well, you can still refuse to heal me if you want.”

“You know I wouldn’t,” he says reproachfully. He can’t help but feel that he’s being manipulated, and the feeling only grows stronger when she says,

“That’s why you’re my favorite.”

He looks away from her face and concentrates on her wounds. They’re really nasty, already a little caked with dirt as well as dried blood. He still can’t believe she did this to herself just so she wouldn’t be questioned about going missing for a few days. It’s not like Father or Surata-san or the elders would try to take her contract, especially if she’s already signed it.

“Did you get the snake contract?” he asks, when it looks like she’s about to say something. He doesn’t want her to have a chance to say something weird and creepy again.

She looks amused. “Yes, I did. Tonight I’m going to the forest to see who I’m able to summon with the chakra I have now.” She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to keep him in view even when he’s working on the back of her knee. “Do you want to come?”

Does he want to see someone use an actual summoning contract to summon actual magical animals? Of _course_ he does. Does he want to be alone with Orochimaru in the forest? No. And does he want to let her carry him there? Never in a thousand years. He must have been quiet too long (dithering) because she says, “You can bring Tobirama if you want. Your older brother, I don’t know if he’s ever lied in his life, but Tobirama’s a good liar.”

“I don’t know why you think he’d lie for _you_ ,” says Itama. He still keeps looking at the wound he’s closing up, not her face. “He doesn’t trust you as far as he could throw you.”

“Don’t you think he could throw me at least a couple of meters? He’s very strong for such a tiny boy.”

Itama scrunches up his face. Tobirama is about three centimeters taller than Orochimaru. “Whatever. If you’re okay with telling him, I’m not responsible if he tells Fa—someone.” After last week, Itama’s sure that Tobirama would never tell Father _anything_. He might tell Touka, though, or Aunt Ako. Itama would actually rather have Hashirama with him if he’s going to sneak to the woods in the middle of the night, but he’ll take what he can get. He really does want to see summons.

So the next night Tobirama carries him halfway to the river to meet Orochimaru. And he learns the other reason she wanted him instead of Hashirama: “Can you sense anyone nearby?” she asks in a low voice. “There might be Senju patrols around here.”

“No, there might not,” he says as he sets Itama down on top of a rock. Itama appreciates being as tall as everyone else, even if he can barely see them because they didn’t bring a lantern. “This isn’t the time when they patrol here. But I can’t sense anyone anyway.”

“Fine. Then we’ll begin.” Orochimaru takes a scroll out of the inside of her kimono—one of Surata-san’s old ones that looks pretty okay on her considering it’s much too big—and unrolls it. It’s covered in scribbly calligraphy that Itama can’t read upside down and in the dark, but it looks like maybe the rules of the contract. Orochimaru rips a chunk of skin off her thumb so blood starts welling up, smears it on all the other fingers of her left hand, and presses them onto a blank spot on the scroll. She looks at it for a moment, then makes three quick hand seals and touches the ground. “Ninja art: summoning technique!” she says.  Now Itama knows she’s definitely just showing off, because announcing your techniques is a good way to get killed. But he’s not expecting the spidery characters that scrawl themselves over the ground, radiating from her hand like the spokes of a wheel. And a brown and white snake appears in a puff of smoke, curled on the contract.

“What’s this?” it asks (Itama jumps—he wasn’t expecting to hear a snake speak!). It slithers toward Orochimaru and rears up a little to look at her bare ankles. “Has Yorino-sama taken on a protégé at last?”

“She’s dead,” says Orochimaru. “Everyone who held your contract is dead. I’m the only one who has it, now.”

“Manda-sama will be so disappointed,” the snake hisses. “Hold out your arm. I want to smell you closer.” Orochimaru bends down to pick it up, and it slithers up her arm until it’s curled around her neck, flicking her chin with its tongue. “They were very good friends, you know. There’s never been another human he respected so much. Or at all.”

“I’ll do my best to be worthy of his respect. I’m Orochimaru.”

“Charmed. My name is Yurine. You could say I’m a minor summon, but it would be foolish of you. Of course, I’m nothing compared to Manda-sama, but I’m not low on the hierarchy although I am small.” Small? Itama raises his eyebrows in the darkness. Yurine is almost a meter long probably, the largest snake he’s ever seen. But he’s heard that summons can grow twenty meters high, so why shouldn’t snake summons grow twenty meters long? There’s a shifting of cloth, and Itama makes out the snake disappearing into Orochimaru’s oversize kimono. Its white head pokes out just above her belt, and Itama can’t help but think it’s really cute.

“Come on,” says Orochimaru, like she’s trying to sound really important and commanding. “We should go back. Tobirama, make sure none of the patrols see us.”

Tobirama’s close enough that Itama can see him rolling his eyes, but he just picks up Itama and follows Orochimaru back toward the compound. “You’d better not be planning on assassinating anyone. If anyone dies and nobody knows why, I’ll tell them it was you.”

“Not if you’re the one who dies,” says Orochimaru. “But rest easy, Senju Tobirama. I have no reason to want to kill you. You’re one of about two reasonable people in your awful clan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing the trend, Tobirama is also trans. It’s unclear in which direction he transgends, but, you know (gestures vaguely) he has a trans vibe. All autists have a trans vibe. For anyone wondering, the reason Orochimaru perpetrated all that drama when pretty much no-one would have noticed her disappearing for a few days? She wants Itama to feel sympathy for her. Even in canon it's very clear that Orochimaru wants all her subordinates to be in love with her so they'll never betray her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which finally news of Madara; more poisoning(s?); continued talk of domestic abuse; Orochimaru is... nice???

Itama is the only one Tobirama tells about it. He can’t tell Hashirama, obviously, because that’s who he’s spying on. Touka’s too much like a grownup to talk to about something like this, and as Tobirama says _that untrustworthy fox Orochimaru_ doesn’t need to know. So he finds Itama, while Itama’s practicing calligraphy and Hashirama’s out training or something.

Or something.

“Father asked me to tail Big Brother,” he breathes in Itama’s ear. He’s acting like he’s just looking over Itama’s shoulder to get a good angle on his brushstrokes. “Today I did. The reason he’s been disappearing to train alone isn’t for a secret technique. He’s been meeting with an Uchiha.”

Startled, Itama blots a huge dark puddle of ink into the paper. “What do you mean, _meeting with_?”

“They act like _friends_ ,” mutters Tobirama. “He probably thinks he’s being a diplomat or something, but he’s just going to get himself killed. He’s so idealistic that he just can’t leave it be when he hears _don’t trust the Uchiha_.”

“He trusts them after everything they’ve done?” Itama murmurs. He trusts them after what they did to _Itama_?

“I have half a mind to tell Father and let him take the beating of his life.”

“What’s the other half?” asks Itama quietly. He’s not thinking about it. He’s not thinking about it.

“Confront him in private and make him see how foolish he is.”

Itama knows Tobirama wouldn’t really tell Father. First of all, it’s always been the three of them against him. Second, getting beaten probably wouldn’t have any more effect on Hashirama than being lectured by his brother. Less, even.

So he says, “When you talk to him, make sure you don’t come on too strong. You have to seem like you’re on his side, not like an extra copy of Father lecturing him. Otherwise he’ll resent you telling him just as much as he would if it was Father.”

“…Yeah.” Tobirama leans against Itama’s side, and watches him get out another sheet of paper to recopy the poem. When he sees the ink that bled through onto the tabletop, he wipes it up with his finger.

Itama turns to give him a small smile. “Thanks.”

 

It’s strange, being the first confidant of both his brothers. Now, more than ever, when they’re actually set against each other as they haven’t been in a long time. Maybe ever. Hashirama stands next to Itama, fidgeting with a kunai, when he should be practicing, and then says, “If… if Tobirama thinks I did something bad, but I think it’s good… How do I… It’s not just that I want him to stop being mad at me, I really want him to support me. I want him to see why it’s good.”

“If this is about the Uchiha thing,” says Itama in a low voice, not looking at his brother, “you should know I agree with him.”

“He _told_ you about that?”

“He wanted me to convince him not to tell Father, I think.” Itama glances around and finds Hashirama looking like a kicked dog. “Brother, you know I’m never going to… I can’t forgive them for what they did. Not just to me.” The more he thinks about the unnerving lack of expression on Orochimaru’s face as she told him what happened to her parents and her aunt, the worse it seems. Something’s _wrong_ with her.

“It’s not about forgiving them, although it would be great if everyone could forgive each other. It’s about stopping the war, don’t you see that? He’s going to be the next clan head! And so am I! If we work together—”

Itama slaps a hand over his mouth and almost overbalances, catching himself on Hashirama’s shoulder. “Not so loud,” he hisses.

Hashirama subsides, and Itama takes his hand away. “Sorry. But it’s important, Itama. If I have the chance to stop this war, shouldn’t I take it? I can prevent so many deaths!”

“I guess.” Itama bites his lip, weighing his desire for peace against his desire to _never forgive them, never_. It’s stupid and illogical to not try to make peace. He hates it. “I’ll make sure Tobirama doesn’t tell Father. I don’t think that will be hard. Maybe I can get him to… try and talk to… the Uchiha clan heir…” He makes a face at Hashirama, who clearly realizes how unlikely that sounds, because he lets out a reluctant laugh.

“I guess that’s all I can ask for. Thanks, Itama. You’re really the best.” He smiles cheerfully, claps Itama on the shoulder, and runs off to the middle of the training ground like he’s already forgotten everything that just happened. “Hey, Itama! Watch what I learned how to do!” And he gestures toward a tree on the edge of the clearing—it twists toward him like a reaching hand, frightening and alien. The leaves are turning from brown back to green, growing in thicker than ever.

Itama swallows. “What is that?”

“Mokuton! It’s a combination of earth and water. I don’t know that anyone else has used it before, isn’t that exciting?”

He doesn’t want to tell his brother it’s kind of scary, so he nods. Maybe if he watches enough he’ll get used to it.

 

In fact, the reaching tree joins his nightmares of fire and long knives. It’s no longer just the ghastly pale hands of the Uchiha that trap him. Now branches bar his way and wrap around his waist and sometimes they _squeeze_ until—

 

It’s only after the announcement of Uchiha Tajima’s death that he hears of _anything_. His brothers are being frustratingly close-mouthed about the whole thing, and he doesn’t see Orochimaru anywhere for days. But when the news reaches them at dinner, via an out-of-breath spy, that Tajima died of some kind of poison… he can’t think of anyone else to blame. He doesn’t think there are any Senju who use poisons.

Father is happy about it because he assumes that Tajima’s fifteen-year-old son, Madara, will be an incompetent leader, quickly conquered. He says he’ll start planning a raid immediately, tells Hashirama to come to the war room for an emergency council. As soon as his back is turned Hashirama and Tobirama exchange a panicked look, and Tobirama excuses himself and runs off. Quickly, Father and Hashirama set off too for the council, leaving Itama alone at the table with a half-finished dinner for four.

He drags himself over to the kotatsu, because it’s been heated recently and he’s aching again, and curls up under it to scowl at the door. What good are brothers if they never tell him anything? What good is a friend like Orochimaru (well… “friend…”) if she just vanishes for no reason? What good is _anyone_ if they leave him all alone, feeling useless and frustrated?

He retracts that unhappy train of thought almost immediately when Tobirama and Orochimaru appear at the door, hurriedly sliding off their shoes. “It was you, wasn’t it?” He blurts out, sitting up.

“Am I allowed to take credit?” asks Orochimaru, eyeing Tobirama from behind her curtain of hair.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” says Tobirama. “All this is enough of a headache. And besides, aren’t you supposed to be an assassin? What kind of assassin takes credit for her kills?”

Orochimaru rolls her eyes. “I didn’t mean _public_ credit. I just want to tell him what happened.”

“You might as well have already—”

“Just tell me!” says Itama.

Orochimaru smiles at him and comes to slide under the kotatsu as well, and Tobirama comes to sit on his other side. “I’m so glad you asked, Itama-kun. Yurine happened to overhear your extremely loud brother trying to justify consorting with the Uchiha behind his clan’s back. Naturally, I was slightly upset, seeing as the Uchiha in question personally killed my clan head. So I followed him the next time he snuck out. It was always painfully obvious, but I never really cared before.” Tobirama snorts, and she gives him a look. “And what did I find but the clan head and his other son doing the exact same thing? Because of who he is—sorry, _was_ —Uchiha Tajima immediately tried to kill the three of us. Yes, Tobirama was there too. Lucky for them, your brothers are pretty good at dodging, so they were able to stay alive while my poisoned needles took effect. I never thought I’d see the day…” She closes her eyes in a blissful smile, looking rather like a cat. “Uchiha Tajima on his hands and knees, throwing up his guts. Once he couldn’t move, little Seiue made sure to help him along. He was probably dead before they managed to get him back to their village.”

“That was two days ago,” Tobirama adds. “Father’s spies only figured it out during the funeral.”

“I’ve really come around on the idea of making peace with the Uchiha,” says Orochimaru. Probably it’s because she thinks she can control them somehow, now. “All that remains is getting rid of _your_ clan head too.”

“Shut up,” hisses Tobirama. “That’s treason. Never say that out loud.”

“But I notice you didn’t discourage me from _doing_ it,” she murmurs with a smile.

This is different than the many times Itama has lain with his brothers in the dark, bruised, almost brave enough to say it. He’s _their_ father. It almost feels like he’s their responsibility. Itama doesn’t want Orochimaru to kill him. If possible he would do it himself.

No, no, he doesn’t mean that. He couldn’t kill Father. Physically, he couldn’t.

What he says, though, is, “They’ll know it was you. Especially if you poison him.”

“Dear Itama-kun,” says Orochimaru, clearly amused by his lack of protest. “No doubt your father is going to die gloriously on the battlefield, as is expected of a man of his inclinations. I won’t be anywhere near him when it happens. I expect. Statistically, you know.”

Tobirama sighs. “Leave us out of it, then. And be quick, if you can. I really don’t know if Madara can survive Father for long. Ugh. I never thought I’d have to say something like that. I still despise him.”

“We all despise him,” Orochimaru assures him. “But let that not be an impediment to lasting peace between your two hideous clans.”

 

In the end, Hashirama is the only one who’s really upset about Father’s death. Itama just feels blank. It’s exactly how he always expected Father to die: taken down on an Uchiha’s sword during a raid. If it weren’t for Orochimaru’s promise, Itama would never in a hundred years think she could have anything to do with it. How could a thirteen-year-old girl who specializes in poisons get Senju Butsuma run through by an Uchiha? He really doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to. It seems utterly magical that she pulled it off; almost like she just declared he would die and then he _did_ ; like a curse.

It feels even more like a curse when she comes back in several pieces. It feels like she gave pain and blood and got a death in return. Itama can’t stop thinking about it as he carefully cleans and reattaches the fingers of her right hand, trying hard to ignore the tacky feeling of drying blood. She’s like the old stories about witches who live up in the mountains, who have loyalty to very specific people and causes and will do terrible things in service to them. He has the nervous, slightly proud feeling that he is one of those she is loyal to.

She wakes up halfway through the operation and jerks, trying to stab him with the small knife she isn’t holding; before treating her, he always makes sure to place all her weapons out of reach, especially if she’s unconscious. The lack of weapon doesn’t keep her from ruining half an hour of work, and he thinks crossly to himself that next time he will have to immobilize her more thoroughly. “Keep still, and you’ll keep the rest of your fingers,” he says. “I’m sure you want them.”

Her pupils slowly contract back to slits, and she slumps against the wall. “My apologies,” she says. “Please carry on with your work.”

She’s silent for a long time while she watches him healing her fingers. She waits until he finishes her middle finger to speak, so as not to startle him. “How does it work?” she asks. “Medical ninjutsu. You’re, what, thirteen? And you can reconnect individual blood vessels.”

“Twelve,” Itama corrects absently as he lines up her forefinger. This one will be hard, because part of the knuckle was destroyed. “Did Tobirama pick these up for you?”

“Yes, it was very gentlemanly of him. Medical ninjutsu…?”

“I haven’t had much else to do since… I stopped being able to fight. It’s pretty much necessary to concentrate all your energy on it for two years. I’d just barely moved to healing other people, actually, when you came to the village. If you want to know how it works in detail I can tell you, but most people don’t find it very interesting. I only learned because there was no other way to be useful.”

“You have been useful to me in many ways,” Orochimaru murmurs. Then she says more loudly, “But tell me about medical ninjutsu. I’m not going anywhere for the next hour, after all.”

He does, if rather badly, being distracted by trying to save her hand. He drops sentences in the middle for five minutes at a time, but she remains patient and reminds him where he was in his thoughts. She also transfers some chakra to him so he can finish without passing out; her chakra is very smooth and somehow solid, in a way that makes it hard to integrate into his own. It takes much more control to use hers, and by the end of the healing he has an awful headache. He desperately wants to go inside and sleep, but he can’t drag himself while Orochimaru is here. There are only two people he can show weakness to, and it’s _exhausting_.

“What’s it like, not being able to walk?” she asks as he leans himself against the wall.

He can’t even muster a glare, because it will make his headache worse, so he just gives her a weary look. “It’s frustrating. I’m a burden on my family, even though they’d never say it. And I can’t just go places. I don’t know if you could even understand that, since you can walk. I need help with _everything_. If _you_ want something across the room you can just get it, and if you want to be alone you can just do that. Most of the things I want aren’t important enough to ask for. And… I just can’t… do things. And I know everyone looks down on me for it. Even you.”

“You are quite a bit shorter than me, yes,” says Orochimaru. She doesn’t inflect it as a joke; she doesn’t smile at all. “So what you want is to be able to move around without having to ask someone?”

“ _Yes_.” He sighs. “It’s probably something I should have been able to do with earth release. But I’m not clever like Tobirama. And I don’t have as much chakra to spare as Hashirama.”

“You’re no worse than them,” Orochimaru spits, and Itama looks up, surprised. Why is she angry? “You keep their council. You train them. You heal them, and me. What you do, keeping the balance, is important. Don’t forget that.” And without even saying goodbye she flickers away, finally leaving Itama the freedom to drag himself inside and pass out in his own bed. He doesn’t use it, though, for a few seconds as he stares after her. That was definitely… something that was supposed to be encouraging…

He turns, frowning at the floor as he drags himself over the threshold. Was Orochimaru being _nice_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Itama sometimes tells Orochimaru things he wouldn't tell anyone else because he assumes her opinion of him can't get any lower, and he wants to whine to _someone_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Itama gets a job; Orochimaru for once fails to be horrible, if only as part of a scheme, but is still embarrassed about it.

He doesn’t see Orochimaru for a while. He ends up being pretty busy, actually, what with the funeral and everyone’s responsibilities shuffling one rung lower in the family. Hashirama takes Father’s responsibilities, Tobirama takes Hashirama’s, and Itama gets some of Tobirama’s. Really, he should have been doing the accounting in the first place, Tobirama has better things to do. It does kind of hurt his head, all the planning and everything, and he still has to ask Tobirama and some of the elders for help, but he’ll definitely get the hang of it if he practices hard.

Surata-san stops coming around, which only makes him feel more like she was only doing it because Father told her to. _Find a way to make use of him_ , Itama has always imagined him saying. Every so often, with a slight jolt, he remembers that Father is dead now. It’s… kind of a relief. In the sense of a burden lifted. But he’s scared, too, because in his way Father protected the three of them, and now it’s Hashirama who heads the family and the clan, and he’s nowhere near grown-up.

Basically what all this means is that Itama isn’t practicing medical ninjutsu any more; he’s too busy, and there’s no-one to make him do it. But that’s all right, too, because nobody is fighting right now. Right after the funeral, Hashirama went to go meet with the Uchiha clan head and they declared peace between the two clans. Tobirama doesn’t think it’s going to stick, given the weight of the years they’ve been at war, but Itama is kind of optimistic. All they have to do is stay out of each other’s way, right? It should be a lot easier to _not_ kill someone than to kill them.

So Itama works, sitting on the porch, sometimes with one of the nicer elders, Mako, who helps him do the accounts. His brothers tell him news about everything when he sees them, which is usually only at dinner, they’re so busy. He misses them. But it’s not so bad, because he has plenty to do. He’s helping.

About twenty days after Father’s funeral, Orochimaru turns up unexpectedly at dinner, looking sullen. More than usual, that is. Hashirama welcomes her with a large smile and says, “Come in! We haven’t seen you forever! What have you been up to?”

“The usual. Studying. Poisoning. Getting evicted from Surata’s house.” She sits down and takes a bowl of rice as if she was expected.

“So you need somewhere to stay?” asks Hashirama. She just eyes him silently, like she’s unwilling to say that she wants a favor. “Of course it’s all right with me, but…” He turns a questioning look on Tobirama and Itama.

“If it will allow us to keep an eye on her,” says Tobirama.

“It’s fine with me,” Itama says, and he’s a little surprised to find that he means it. Some time in the past few months he stopped being afraid of her. Or, well, he’s still afraid of her, but that’s because she’s a shinobi. It’s only sensible to be afraid of shinobi. “I think you’ll have to take… Father’s room, though.”

“I’ll try and tolerate the smell,” she says, and Itama can’t stifle a little laugh.

The next day, she’s moved in, but strangely enough he hardly sees more of her at all. She’s out all day—he can only suppose she must be hunting for new poisons or something. Occasionally he can get her to stay and keep him company while he’s working, and he finally gets the story of her eviction.

“Surata thinks I’m too creepy to be allowed under her roof,” says Orochimaru with some satisfaction. “She doesn’t like snakes, despite their clear mythological link with healing.” (Itama doesn’t know the mythological link between snakes and healing, but then, he doesn’t come from the clan that held the snake contract.) “She also seemed to find it unnerving when I collected blood for perfectly normal purposes.”

“Whose… blood?” asks Itama, unsure if he wants to know the answer. He’s not even going to _ask_ about ‘perfectly normal purposes’ for blood.

Orochimaru just smiles at him, and doesn’t answer the question. “She tried to hit me, but she’s no shinobi. Along with the screaming, I took that as my cue to leave. I never left anything at her house anyway, it’s all in scrolls. I wouldn’t put it past her to go through my things.”

Itama nods uncertainly, and keeps working on the sum he’s doing. She’s silent for a while, until she says, “I have to go,” and stands up.

“Why?” asks Itama, hating the little whine in his voice. Mako isn’t here today, and he doesn’t like to be all alone while he works. He’s spent enough time alone for one life.

“You’ll see in two days,” she says, and vanishes.

 

She has been awfully secretive, but Itama never considered that it was because she had an actual secret. He kind of thought it was just her personality. But two days later when she appears at the bottom of the porch stairs with a… _thing_ , he realizes how long it must have taken her to make it. Months, probably, she’s been hiding it from him.

The _thing_ is a sturdy wooden box-ish thing with large wheels, looking like a tiny version of the sort of cart that he used to see at the market, when he was still able to go there. She carries it up the steps, though it must weigh as much as she does, and sets it on the ground next to Itama with a heavy thump. She looks at him expectantly for a good thirty seconds, and then starts to look annoyed. “Well?” she says.

“What is it?”

“It’s a way for you to get around on your own. It comes with these to navigate.” She holds out two long, straight staves, like walking sticks. “If you let me help you up, you can try it.”

He takes a deep breath, and tries to let it out silently. He’s never let her pick him up before, but at least she’s _asking_. He’s sure that when they met she wouldn’t have. Of course, she probably also wouldn’t have spent two months building him a cart so he wouldn’t have to drag himself around the house. So, although he thinks the cart is kind of silly, and way too big for most of the places he’d want to go, he says, “All right.”

Being picked up by Orochimaru is not like being picked up by his brothers. They do it easily, confident that they have the right. Orochimaru’s hands are uncertain, and she pulls them back quickly once she’s put him down, before he can find a comfortable position. When he accepts the sticks and pushes the cart forward, though, he realizes that the wheels roll very smoothly. The cart is heavy, yes, but it’s not so much of a problem with how nice the wheels are. He gets stuck when he reaches the end of the porch, because there’s not room to turn around, and Orochimaru has to turn the cart for him.

“Well?” she demands. “Is it good?” When he hesitates, she says, “Don’t lie if it’s not good. I’ll make a better one.”

“But you put so much work into it,” he says.

“I don’t want to put that much work into it and have it be _bad_ ,” she snaps. “Just tell me what it is you don’t like.”

“Well, it’s really big. If I was going to use it in the house I couldn’t get to a lot of places. And it wouldn’t be able to get up past the genkan anyway. Um, it also doesn’t turn that well. The sticks… I don’t think they’d be good indoors, maybe it would be better to turn the wheels directly?” He drops the sticks and pushes forward experimentally on the wheels. It _is_ easier to do small maneuvers, although he gets a few splinters in his hand. That could be fixed if he had gloves. “It also weighs more than I do. If you could find a way to make it lighter…”

“Fine,” says Orochimaru. “I’ll need to take some measurements. So I’ll know exactly how big to make it.”

She _seems_ like she’s angry as she marks the cart with a stick of charcoal. She doesn’t say anything, and Itama silently obeys her gestured instructions, not even smiling when she pins up the sleeve of her kimono to write notes on her paper-white arm. She must be angry that her design wasn’t good. He kind of wishes he _had_ pretended it was perfect.

She comes back just a week later with another cart, or maybe the same one altered. She gets a pair of gloves for Itama and he rolls himself around very carefully through the house, picking things up off tables and putting them down again. He almost completely forgets about Orochimaru watching him silently from the corner, too taken with how easy it is to move. The smile on his face is so broad that it’s starting to ache.

He’s still at it when his brothers come home, getting used to fine maneuvers and turns, tired but unwilling to stop. Tobirama pauses in the doorway, for once showing surprise. “Itama?”

“Look!” he says, his smile widening even more. “Orochimaru made it for me! I can go anywhere in the house on my own, now!”

“Ah, Itama, that’s wonderful!” says Hashirama, hanging over Tobirama’s shoulder. “And Orochimaru, thank you.”

When he looks over, Orochimaru is pretending to ignore them all. She doesn’t want to be caught in the act of kindness. Tobirama comes to inspect the cart, and Itama happily points out various features to him. “Now if only there were a ramp down from the porch, I could go into the village proper!”

“Your wish is my command!” says Hashirama. He comes behind the cart as if he’s going to push it outside, but Itama wheels himself forward, reveling for a moment in the guilty expression on his brother’s face. He gets out to the porch before Hashirama does (THUMP over the edge of the genkan), and then watches as Hashirama uses his new mokuton to smooth over the tops of the stairs. “How’s that?” he asks, proud.

“I’d fall on my face if I tried to go down that, Brother.”

Hashirama’s face falls, and he hangs his head. “Sorry, that was really stupid of me, I guess.”

“Stop your dramatics and just make a longer one, then,” says Orochimaru from the doorway. She’s almost glaring at Hashirama.

“Yes, ma’am!” The ramp stretches out to ten meters long, plenty shallow enough for Itama. Hashirama hovers behind his shoulder the whole time, like he thinks Itama is going to somehow fall off the ramp, but Itama can ignore him well enough. He lets the cart go down the ramp on its own, slowing the wheels as he reaches the bottom. It’s exciting, finding the precise control that lets him come to a stop just as he reaches the grass; he grins up at Tobirama and Orochimaru on the porch, feeling like an artist. An artist with two gloves bristling with splinters.

 

All the possibilities it opens up! He could—he could go shopping himself! He could work in the hospital with the other medics! He could go to council meetings! Probably not, because he’s eleven, but _maybe_. He could… visit people in the rest of the village. He could have friends again.

It’s honestly kind of overwhelming, so he starts by asking Orochimaru to come with him when he goes shopping. He feels a sort of power rush, getting to pick the best vegetables himself, and he takes almost all day about it. He finds that Orochimaru has gotten bored and drifted away, but she turns up again at the house for dinner with a large basket of mushrooms. Itama is cooking at the hearth with his cart pushed away behind him, tired but happy, when he hears her come in. “Welcome home!” he says.

She sees him eying the mushrooms and says, “Don’t worry, none of _these_ are poisonous. When they’re cooked. I managed to get a discount because I know a few places to _get_ the poisonous ones. These will be good with dinner.” To reassure him, which is really pretty nice of her, she puts one in her mouth and eats it. Itama would be a lot more reassured if he didn’t know that her clan’s bloodline ability is immunity to poisons. Or was it venoms? She keeps trying to explain the difference, but he can never remember.

She sits down next to him and starts cutting up the mushrooms with the knife she always carries. He’s seen her cutting aconite with it, though she has told him several times that she cleans it very carefully. She looks like she’s making another poison, or some kind of spell, not dinner. She looks like a spirit, with firelight flickering over her pale face and her eyes shining bright gold. He only realizes he was staring when her head turns just a bit and she looks at him and smiles a fox’s smile. He quickly turns his head back toward the vegetables he was cutting and does not look away from them until he finishes.

By that point, Orochimaru has wandered off into the other room, though he can still see her talking quietly with Yurine and slowly writing something down, one stroke every minute or two. She’s so… he frowns for a few minutes, and then gets it. She’s so _complete_ in herself. Assured. She always looks like whatever she happens to be doing is exactly what she wants to be doing. Itama just doesn’t understand how anyone could ever have that much self-confidence after their whole world was burned and they were left to die. He didn’t have that even _before_ it happened to him. But he can remember one time when she didn’t either, the five minutes when they first met and she tried desperately to hurt him as much as she could. He understands why, kind of, but he can’t put it into words. He’d rather not have a friend who hurts people when she’s scared, like a panicking cat, but he can’t leave her now.

She’s, she’s his, more or less, even more than she’s Tobirama’s.

He imagines her as a white cat with yellow eyes, strolling along a wall. She has the self-assurance of a cat, too.

He laughs to himself. Yurine takes notice and looks over at him even though Orochimaru doesn’t.

A few minutes later Tobirama comes home (Hashirama doesn’t usually come home in time for dinner at all) and sits down next to Itama to eat. He glances at Orochimaru in the other room but doesn’t say anything, just listens with a small smile on his face while Itama talks about going to the market. Well, it’s not really a smile, but because it’s Tobirama the lack of a worried frown might as well be. He even comments on the good choice of vegetables, which makes Itama feel a little like he’s glowing inside.

Later Hashirama comes home and Itama tells him too and he’s even _more_ excited about the vegetables. Itama would think his brother was just trying to make him feel better, except Hashirama has never lied to him, ever.

Orochimaru is nowhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hashirama actually helped Orochimaru build the cart, so he’s less surprised when he sees it than just delighted that Itama likes it. He’s been liberally threatened into silence (and not taking credit) but! He’s just so happy! To see his little brother smile! 
> 
> Shoutout to the excellent [Starry_Fantasies](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_Fantasies/pseuds/Starry_Fantasies) for the idea that Orochimaru’s clan has a poison immunity bloodline. I think it might just be ALL toxics rather than specifically poisons vs venoms? Chakra can do anything, you guys.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more! panic! attacks! catatonia! can everyone let my boy rest!
> 
> meanwhile madara is genuinely adorable for a dumb 15-year-old but no-one notices

Hashirama announces, with glee nobody else feels, that the head of the Uchiha clan is going to visit. For diplomacy reasons. It’s after dinner, when he’s wolfing down the cold leftover food, and he doesn’t seem to notice how everyone else looks a lot less excited than he does. He wouldn’t be Hashirama otherwise, Itama supposes.

It won’t matter to Itama. He’ll just be in the archives.

The archives is a wonderful place that has information on basically _everything_ that anyone in the Senju clan has ever done. Itama has finally learned to love reading rather than thinking wistfully of running around outside. But he does need help, because he doesn’t know a lot of kanji yet. So, when he’s free, Tobirama comes with him.

Tobirama really likes the archives too. When he’s not sounding out kanji for Itama he’s hidden behind snowdrifts of scrolls illustrating water release techniques and seals from the Isle of Whirlpools, and Itama is reading Senju history and fragments of the histories of other clans. It’s there that he comes across an account of a diplomatic trip to the Yamanaka clan, up in the North Mountains. He’s not sure if the writer, Senju Tarou, is exaggerating when he says they can turn into birds and hear each other’s thoughts. But then he reads:

_Inogi laughed at me and said it was nothing anyone couldn’t do with chakra, if they knew the trick. Even turning into birds? I asked. And she replied: the two things are the same._

Itama feels like his whole body has lit up. Can people really hear each other’s thoughts? Can people really hear the thoughts of _birds_? He scans through the rest of the journal and finds at the end, like a lot of accounts have, a summary of techniques that were mentioned in it. Tarou managed to charm the Yamanaka enough that they told him their technique: it’s called Mind-Body Transmission. Tarou noted the hand seals they used, but they didn’t explain how to do it. Itama carefully copies them down, because sometimes when he does the seals for a technique and shapes his chakra according to the seals he’ll understand how to do it.

He wonders if it’s like healing at all. Healing is kind of like sharing chakra, and isn’t the mind also made of chakra? Maybe? Did he read that somewhere? Anyway, if it _is_ like healing, it will probably be kind of familiar. Who would Itama want to share his mind with? Definitely his brothers. He wants to remember what it’s like to be strong, and maybe he could come with them when they go far away. They could teach each other too! If you were with someone, _as_ chakra and _in_ their chakra, you could probably help them shape it.

He writes down all the cool things he would be able to do with Mind-Body Transmission. No, not _would_ be able to do. _Will_ be able to do.

He can’t really concentrate for the rest of the day, so pretty soon he goes looking for Tobirama to get to the market and get home early. Maybe they can make something fancy. Would they be better at coming up with recipes if they combined their—?

Itama laughs at himself and shakes his head. He’s getting a little carried away. “Tobirama!” he calls softly. “Are you ready to leave?”

Tobirama is in his usual scroll-drift, and peers up over the top of the pile when he hears Itama. “Already?”

“I can’t concentrate,” Itama confesses. “I read something amazing and now I can’t read any more!”

Tobirama, like the wonderful big brother he is, rolls up what he’s reading and looks expectantly at Itama. Itama clears his throat importantly and unfolds his notes. “It was a story about a diplomat from twenty years ago who went to the North Mountains.”

Tobirama’s eyes sharpen. He smiles. “The Yamanaka are rumored to have some very interesting techniques.”

“Who are you getting rumors from?” Itama mumbles, half-pouting. “Share with me next time! Whatever. At first he thought they could read each other’s thoughts and turn into birds, but then they told him the two things were the same! So they somehow turned sharing thoughts into something that could… I guess they can share their thoughts with birds! I always wanted to know how birds think. And, and, if you could share thoughts think how amazing it would be! You’d always know if your family was safe, and if someone was sad you could comfort them, and _maybe_ you’d know what it’s like to be a bird!”

Tobirama has a strange expression that Itama can’t decode. He opens his mouth, and sighs, and opens it again. “That’s… very beautiful.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I like it. I suppose I’m just skeptical. I don’t know if that’s what people would use it for.”

“That’s what the Yamanaka use it for,” says Itama, 100% pouting now.

“Let’s ask Brother,” he suggests. He’s humoring Itama. “Help me clean up first.”

So they bring all the scrolls back to their places. It’s silly that Tobirama gets _all_ of them out whenever he comes, because even a genius like him can’t read fifty scrolls in a couple of hours. But that’s kind of one of Itama’s favorite things about him.

Itama keeps his notes in his lap while they’re going home so both of them can read them at the same time. They end up almost crashing into a lot of things, and a couple of people laugh at them. It’s nice laughter, though. Itama thinks they like him and his brother the same way he likes when Tobirama pulls out every scroll at once.

In the market the vendors let Itama inspect all their wares as closely as he wants, and Tobirama goes off to get other things to save time. The pile of winter vegetables in the basket in his lap grows taller; he props his notes up against it and tries to arrange them so they won’t roll out when he has to use both his hands to move.

Tobirama returns with a basket of _oranges_ , and Itama makes him wait while he eats one on the spot. Of course, he offers Tobirama a few slices, but he’s not really sure Tobirama _enjoys_ food, and maybe he’s just taking it to humor Itama. That’s all right. Food is always better when it’s shared.

Ah! He can share the oranges with Orochimaru, and Hashirama once he gets back!

“We’re home!” Itama calls, in case Orochimaru happens to be in. To his surprise, Hashirama pokes his head out of another room and says,

“Welcome home! We have a guest!”

Itama’s too busy propping his staves up on the wall and negotiating the genkan ramp, which Hashirama keeps meaning to fix, so he doesn’t look up for a couple of seconds. When he does…

His heart starts beating double-time. There’s an Uchiha standing next to his brother. He has never even imagined this before, and if he did it wouldn’t be when he’s happy and relaxed. Not that he’s either of those things any more. “Tobirama,” he says faintly, unable to get quite enough breath.

“A guest,” Tobirama echoes in his ear. “Not a phantom. Not an assassin.”

Itama can no longer see clearly. The Uchiha is just a black and pale shape, standing there with all the forceful inevitability of a nightmare. He can’t get enough air into his lungs no matter how many breaths he takes. That person is _looking at him_.

With great deliberateness he wheels himself to the door to the bedroom he shares with his brothers. With great deliberateness (and shaking hands) he takes the basket out of his lap and places it on the floor, then shuts the door behind him. With much less deliberateness he shoves himself out of his cart and onto his bed, where, trembling, he wraps himself in his blanket and curls up as small as possible.

Through the rice paper walls, he can hear voices as clearly as if he were right next to them. “What’s wrong with him?” asks a low, unfamiliar voice. There’s a scuffle, and a little while later the voice says, “Ow! Fine! Let me go! I never asked anything!” Itama pulls the blanket further over his ears, trying to block out every trace of the Uchiha. He’s not human, he’s not real, he’s not a _person_ who… who…

Tears soak the part of the blanket he has his face pressed into. Not in his _house_ , not in the place that has been absolutely safe since Father died. Couldn’t it have been anywhere else? Hashirama, Hashirama, couldn’t it have been _anywhere_ else?

He’s too anxious to sleep, but he only has so many tears, and he tires himself out after what must be most of an hour of trying to cry silently. A door slides open somewhere in the house. He burrows his face deeper into the blanket. More voices, low. Footsteps. The door to his room slides open and his whole body freezes like ice overtaking the surface of a pond in less than a second.

The door shuts.

Itama is going to die, and he can’t even move.

“I wanted to kill him,” says Orochimaru’s soft voice. He hears her kneel, and tries to relax his body because she’s _safe_ , but still can’t move. “I wanted to kill him as soon as I saw him, but I do have some restraint. After Tobirama told me what he did to you…”

Itama manages to uncurl one of his fists, sharply.

“Suffice it to say that he is not forgiven for the murder of my clansmen, and he is not forgiven for having the face that he has or whatever it is that you’re crying about.”

Itama’s hand curls into the blanket again. He can’t move anything else.

“Itama-kun?”

He can’t make a sound.

A hand lightly touches his back, pauses, and shakes him by the shoulder. It’s as if that tiny movement cracks the ice—he brings his hands up to his face through the blanket, panics a little, tries to throw it off, and gets tangled in it. After struggling for what feels like several minutes he gives up and leans, still tangled up, against Orochimaru’s side.

Or he tries to, and actually falls mostly on her lap. She jumps a little bit, and he thinks that maybe he is going to die after all. But then her hand drops onto his shoulder again.

She doesn’t say anything, and after a while her hand starts moving slowly back and forth. He thinks she might be humming, very quietly. And finally, he is safe enough to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone I'm obsessed with ninshuu


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi I'm always more on time with this story because I like it a lot more. here's a MUCH nicer chapter with zero panic attacks, one or two overprotective brothers, and a small emeto joke

He hears later, from the merchants at market and from some of the elders who help him with accounts, that Hashirama showed his Uchiha _friend_ all around town and tried to introduce him to everyone. “You’d call it tense,” says Mako, leaning in close to whisper to Itama. “Half the elders looked like they were thinking of running, and the other half looked like they were planning how best to kill the boy! For all that he’s no older than our Hashirama. A very unpleasant expression he had, too. Proud. Still, if Hashirama likes him…”

“Hashirama likes everyone,” Itama says gloomily. “Even the Uchiha.”

Mako pats him on the shoulder. “He does, that. More importantly, this Madara must like Hashirama quite a bit too, to tolerate everyone trying to glare him to death.”

“Who cares,” mumbles Itama. “I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about sums. Let’s talk about next season’s crops.”

Mako puts a sympathetic arm around him and squeezes, which is really just what he wanted. And, thank goodness, he changes the subject.

 

It’s kind of hard to avoid gossip about the Uchiha these days, though, since the rumor is their ceasefire might turn into an alliance. Most people he knows (which is mostly civilians from the market) are in favor of the ceasefire, but almost no-one Itama has talked to wants to call the Uchiha their allies any more than he does.

Tobirama is carefully neutral on both subjects, even though he’s _got_ to have an actual opinion. Well, he’s caught between his brothers. Itama knows how that feels, and he knows it’s not fun. But Orochimaru is willing to talk bad about the Uchiha for as long as Itama will let her. Coincidentally (ha) he finds himself spending more time with her.

Well. That’s not the only reason. The other reason is that she doesn’t share Tobirama’s doubts about how Mind-Body Transmission will be used.

She’s a lot better than Itama at every kind of ninjutsu besides medical ninjutsu, so he asks her to help him turn the hand seals into a technique. They both sit there in the training ground slowly making hand seals and shaping their chakra to match. Itama thinks there must be some element of _throwing_ yourself, like casting a fishing line to hook onto someone else’s heart. It ends in bird, and then ram, which _feels_ just like that.

“Okay, stop making seals for a second,” says Itama. “I want to try it with you.”

Orochimaru folds her hands primly on her lap, then looks up at him expectantly. It’s distracting and kind of makes him want to laugh, so he closes his eyes. He makes the seals, and then casts his line.

He misses.

It’s _disorienting_ when he opens his eyes and part of his mind is outside his body. If he weren’t already sitting down he would probably fall over. It’s like being dizzy, except not. It’s like distance isn’t working right, except not.

Orochimaru watches him intently until she’s determined that he’s not going to drop dead, and then her stare turns haughty. “I’ll do it, then,” she says. “Just watch. Of course I’m going to get it right before you.”

She also misses, and scowls when he laughs at her. “I wouldn’t expect to get it right on the first try,” she says. “You’re not going to get it now either.”

They practice until the sun sets and it starts to get really cold, and neither of them gets it. Itama’s mind isn’t getting anywhere near Orochimaru, and he doesn’t know why. Is part of the seal sequence focused on targeting? If so, which part? And how does he use it to target a particular person? He promises to spend more time researching it tomorrow so they can figure it out. Sadly, Orochimaru isn’t allowed into the archives because she’s not a Senju shinobi or elder.

She says she didn’t want to go in anyway, and spends the morning making poison.

He finds out a couple things today at the archives. First, almost all the Yamanaka are chakra sensors, so they probably _know_ where the people they’re trying to share their minds with are. Second, Ambassador Tarou tried this technique for a long time and never managed to make it work. Third, the Senju haven’t sent an envoy to the North Mountains for twenty years. Which Itama takes to mean it’s about time.

Tonight is one of those rare nights when Hashirama actually makes it to dinner, although he is pretty late. Itama eats his food slowly, hoping he’ll show up, and sits up straighter when he does. “Brother! Welcome home! How was it?”

“Good,” says Hashirama. “I think maybe the elders are coming around.” If Itama removes the bias due to Hashirama’s optimism, they’ve probably stopped arguing with him because he’s exhausting when he pouts. “How was your day?”

“I’ve been doing research on Yamanaka special techniques,” says Itama. “It’s really interesting, and I think it could be useful for a lot of stuff. Like having people understand each other, and making sure they’re safe. I also noticed there hasn’t been an envoy to their clan for a really long time, and, you know, I bet they would make good allies.”

“You think I should send someone? Oh, that’s a great idea! We can show the Uchiha what good allies we make for other people! Itama, you know the most about them, what kind of qualities should the ambassador have?”

“Well, they should have studied a lot about the way the Yamanaka do things… and they should be really interested… and I think it would be good if we sent someone named Itama…”

He grins when Hashirama starts to laugh, but then his brother’s face gets serious. “You can’t be an envoy, Itama.” He can clearly see the question in Itama’s frown. “Well, first of all, you’re twelve.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not smart and good at talking to people! I’m a perfectly good medic, and I do all the accounts for the clan—”

“It’s hard for other people to tell that, though!”

“Fine, send an adult with me.”

“I don’t want you to go at all!”

Tobirama, Itama notices, is staying out of it again. Why won’t he just take sides for once! “There’s no good reason for me not to go if it’s not that they won’t respect the ambassador.”

“You’re my _brother_ ,” says Hashirama. He’s using his pleading face, which Itama stoutly ignores. “I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt, and if you were away for months and months I’d never know if you were still okay!”

“Don’t we have messenger birds that we use to talk to the Isle of Whirlpools?”

“Yes,” says Hashirama miserably. “We do. But Itama…”

It’s about Kawarama. And it’s about how Itama can’t walk, because it always is. “Send a bodyguard with me. Someone you really trust. But please let me go. It’s important.”

“I’ll have to convince the elders,” Hashirama mumbles.

Itama pulls himself up onto his cart, leans over to pull the brake out from under the wheel, and turns sharply around to go into his room. It’s Hashirama’s room too, of course, which kind of ruins the dramatic exit, but he knows better than to come in while Itama is mad at him.

 

Itama doesn’t let up for the next week, and he even manages to convince Tobirama that it will be a good learning experience and maybe he will end up being a diplomat, which the clan really needs and honestly doesn’t have. Tobirama properly gives in when Orochimaru overhears them and storms in to make sure everyone knows she’s going as Itama’s bodyguard, because he’s useless at ninjutsu and someone has to make sure he doesn’t die. Itama hides a smile in his shoulder. And Tobirama goes to talk to Hashirama.

Two weeks later Hashirama sends a hawk to the North Mountains. A week after that he gets a reply. And the next day Itama sets out with Orochimaru and a broad forty-year-old veteran named Takema, after a suffocating amount of hugs from Hashirama.

Because the road was made for much larger carts, Orochimaru spends a lot of time smoothing it out with earth release. Itama tries to help, but he’s never gotten the hang of large-scale ninjutsu, only what he uses as part of healing. That, and he needs his hands free to hold his staves. He kind of hates it. It makes Orochimaru crabby, and he’s afraid she’ll stop liking him. He’s actually not afraid because he thinks she’ll try to hurt him again—he’s afraid because he just… wants her to like him. And he _knows_ he’s inconvenient. She already spent two months building his cart, and now she has to fix the road for him or help him upright every couple of meters.

Takema is more or less silent, although she seems pretty friendly, in theory. She doesn’t complain about having to go slower for Itama’s cart, but she doesn’t help either. She probably doesn’t use earth release.

Itama makes himself as useful as he can (which is not very) for the three weeks it takes to get to the North Mountains while skirting around Uchiha territory. Eventually the road runs out and Orochimaru is just making a road for him. It gets harder as they enter the foothills, and Itama only gets more miserable as the burden of his uselessness weighs down on him. And then on the sixteenth day an honor guard is waiting for them.

From the descriptions in the scrolls Itama has read, she’s not a Yamanaka, easily over two meters tall with dark eyes and red rings tattooed on her cheeks. “You must be the Senju delegation,” she says, studying them from all the way up there. “I was expecting… Well, I’m Hokouzui. You’ll be passing through Akimichi territory before you make it up into the proper mountains. You can stay in the village if you don’t mind a delay. I guarantee someone will throw a party for you.”

“I’m Takema,” says the official ambassador, bowing. “Please take good care of us. This is Itama, the clan head’s younger brother and an ambassador in training, and his bodyguard, Orochimaru.”

“You must be tired of rough terrain, Itama-kun,” says Hokouzui. “And it’s only going to get rougher. I can carry you, if you like. I’m more than strong enough.”

Itama bites his lip. It doesn’t set a good precedent, arriving in a new place being carried by a stranger. His arms are sore and he’s exhausted and he’s put Orochimaru out too much already. He glances at her to try to tell if she’ll be angry if he says no. She raises her eyebrows at him, which tells him nothing. He gives in and beckons her over to whisper, “I don’t think I’ll… well, look very much like a diplomat if I let her carry me, but I don’t want to inconvenience you any more than I have. I know you must be tired.”

“This is nothing,” says Orochimaru haughtily (but very quietly). “We look twice as good if we’re showing off our independence _and_ our earth release.”

Itama gives her a grateful look, and then straightens up. “Your offer is very kind, Hokouzui-san, but I prefer to make my own way.”

“Fair enough,” says Hokouzui. “Come on, then. It’s not too much of a walk.”

The Akimichi village is very red and brown and black, which makes everything look rich, and nestled in a fold of the hills for natural fortification. The whole village also smells delicious, like maybe their ninjutsu specialty is food release that makes their enemies want to become allies. As Hokouzui predicted, as soon as they appear in front of the elders someone is sent off to start preparing a banquet.

“Thank you for the extremely warm welcome,” says Takema drily. “We weren’t expecting quite so much enthusiasm from a clan we’ve barely talked to and never had any real trade with.”

“We like guests,” says the high elder easily. He’s a very fat man, probably eighty years old, whose face is so creased with smile lines that he must have a hard time looking angry. “And from what we heard from up the mountain, there might be an alliance on the horizon. Hmm?”

Takema bows slightly. “That’s true. The Senju are looking to abandon inter-clan wars, in hopes that the whole land can be more prosperous without constant bloodshed.”

“It’s worked for us so far,” says the high elder. “Nobody touches a three-clan alliance in a time like this. We haven’t had much trouble for, oh, two or three generations. Agriculture has never been better. And the food! Good heaven!” He laughs, and his whole body shakes. Itama can’t help but like him. The Akimichi seem like a very good people to be allied with: generous, prosperous, and intimidating to enemies. “It shouldn’t be too long before we can go down to the banquet hall and find them set up. We can talk business tomorrow morning, if you have any business to talk. Otherwise we’ll call an escort down the mountain and you can be on your way. Sounds good?”

“Yes, thank you, high elder,” says Takema.

“Please, Takema-kun! No need to stand on ceremony. Call me Chougo!”

And then there’s the feast. Itama insists on sitting away from Takema so he can talk to some of the Akimichi (though Orochimaru sticks to his side like sap), and everyone he meets is just as friendly. Maybe the ones who aren’t friendly didn’t come to the feast? There’s so much good food that he feels mildly sick, and everyone gets kind of drunk and starts telling dirty stories, and Itama asks the woman he’s sitting next to if he and Orochimaru have somewhere to sleep, since they don’t really like alcohol. It’s an enormous relief to get somewhere quiet after all the shouting and laughing and kind-of-bad singing in the banquet hall. Itama sprawls on his enormous bed and says, “Blhhhh.”

Orochimaru does her I’m-not-laughing laugh. “You certainly enjoyed yourself.”

“And you looked like you thought someone was gonna try and stab us at any second. I bet your back hurts a lot.”

“It doesn’t,” says Orochimaru. She’s definitely lying. “Are you going to throw up?”

“Maybe. I’ll throw up on you.”

“If you do, I’ll poison you in your sleep.”

“Isn’t that a compliment coming from you?” Itama wonders. “Like, I know you could kill me in way worse ways.”

Orochimaru pretends to try to smother him with his blanket, and he punches her in the face. “Go to sleep, Itama-kun,” she says, digging the heel of her hand into where he hit her like she's trying to wipe sap off her face.

“ _You_ go to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these kids are 12-13 and extremely dumb and I love them. Orochimaru's back hurts because she was so tense during dinner.


	8. Chapter 8

By the time they make it up to the Yamanaka village Itama has given in and let Orochimaru push his cart. He often finds himself at quite an angle, so he has to resort to sticking himself in his seat with chakra, holding tight to his staves laid across the armrests. It’s basically horrible, but in spite of the Yamanaka escort’s amused looks they make it there in one piece. Or however many pieces they’re supposed to be in. The Yamanaka village is a lot less… just a lot less than the Akimichi one. A lot of the buildings are made of the same rock as the mountain itself, so it almost looks like it’s part of the landscape. It’s not very noticeable at all, as if their first defense is staying hidden rather than being huge and friendly.

It’s also very cold and kind of hard to breathe, and there’s snow everywhere. Unlike in the Akimichi village, winter hasn’t left this place yet. It’s not even thinking about leaving.

Instead of meeting with the elders, they get taken to a room first to wait for the clan head to have time to talk to them.

“Do you want to do the talking?” asks Takema. “I know Hashirama-dono said I needed to come to give you legitimacy, but you are here to get experience, and, well, this was your idea from the start.”

Itama swallows. “You’ll be my backup, though?”

“I’m a pro at being backup,” says Takema. “I can do frosty disapproval too, if they treat you like a kid.”

He bows slightly, grateful. “Thank you for your help, Takema-san.”

After most of an hour, which Itama spends fidgeting and trying to come up with fragments of speeches he might need to make, someone comes to get them and take them to see the clan head. They find her in a study completely lined with scrolls, not doing anything, just waiting for them. Like all the Yamanaka, Lady Inoiro looks like a painting of someone else that has faded in the sun, with her pale skin, red-gold hair in a high tail, and sky-blue eyes. “Welcome, Senju,” she says.

Itama rolls himself forward just enough to be in front of Takema and Orochimaru. He takes a deep breath, and bows as best he can while sitting. “Thank you for meeting with us, Inoiro-sama. As a representative of the Senju clan I have a request from my clan head as well as a personal request.” She waves her hand for him to continue. “I’m not sure if the news has reached you all the way up here—or, um, if it’s interesting news to you—but we’ve stopped fighting the Uchiha for now. Hashirama is considering making an alliance with them. Since we’re in a time of peace now, it makes sense to ally ourselves with other friendly clans, too. So we’re here to formally negotiate an alliance, like we said in our letter.”

“Hashirama,” says Lady Inoiro. “I don’t know that name. Why and when did Butsuma step down?”

Itama’s heart thunks in his chest, and Orochimaru’s presence behind him feels like a burning brand too close to his skin. “He died in battle,” he manages. “About three months ago. Uchiha Tajima had been assassinated a little before that. So their sons both wanted to make peace.” Hell. Orochimaru killed _both_ of them. She’s pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the ceasefire, just because she hated them both so much. He looks down at his folded hands and hopes he’ll look grieved about his clan head’s death, rather than nervous that Lady Inoiro will somehow pluck out of his mind the fact that the person who killed him is standing in her study. Not that she should _care_ , and not that it’s her business if she does know, but—

“My father never liked him,” she says easily. “They met just once, after that charming envoy came to talk. It went so poorly that we haven’t had any contact with the Senju since.”

“Doesn’t that seem rather a dangerous thing to say to his son?” says Orochimaru in her most deadly polite voice.

“No,” says Lady Inoiro. “You’re entirely at my mercy here, in the center of my village. No matter how good you are, the three of you won’t be able to get more than a few steps if we don’t want you to. I don’t mean that as a threat. I’d rather not have to hurt any of you. It sounds like your current leader—Hashirama—has a good head on his shoulders.” She eyes Orochimaru speculatively. “You don’t look like a Senju.”

“I’m not.”

“Orochimaru-san, please don’t threaten the Yamanaka clan head,” says Itama softly, craning his neck around to give her a pleading look. “We’re trying to make a good impression. Sorry, Inoiro-sama. This is Tsukikage Orochimaru, my bodyguard.”

Lady Inoiro raises her eyebrows. “You’ve already started making alliances, then.”

Itama bites his lip. He doesn’t want to upset Orochimaru by saying… anything, really. She solves the problem for him and says, coldly, “No. My clan was destroyed by the Uchiha. There wasn’t enough left to make an alliance with.”

Lady Inoiro bows her head in acknowledgment. “I would be happy to offer an alliance to the Senju if your terms are agreeable. And I think my clan considers more alliances better.”

Itama pulls out the letter Hashirama wrote, realizes he needs two hands to come forward, and then puts it on his lap until he’s rolled close enough to hand it to her. “Thank you, Itama-kun. I will look over it with my council. We will discuss it again tomorrow evening.” He thinks she’s dismissing them and bows again, making ready to turn around, but then she says, “Along with your personal request, Itama-kun, I confess myself curious about why your clan head sent such a young child as a diplomat.”

“Oh, uh.” Itama feels his face flushing. “I’m technically not the diplomat. Brother was worried I wouldn’t be taken seriously so he put Takema-san in charge of the mission. She agreed to let me talk because I wanted to train in diplomacy. That’s part of the reason I’m here. The other part is the personal request.” He fidgets with his hands in his lap, suddenly afraid that it will sound childish or will jeopardize the alliance. “I read Senju Tarou’s account of his time here, and I wanted to learn more about your clan’s secret techniques.” Her eyes narrow, and she leans forward. He thinks she’s trying to be scary, because she’s doing a _great_ job. “U-um, I thought, I j-just…” All thoughts have left his mind aside from _is she going to kill me?_ He can’t look at her for too long, but he can’t keep his gaze away either. Is she _doing something_?

Orochimaru’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. “Itama-kun believes that the Mind-Body Transmission technique can be used to teach, or to aid diplomacy.” Her bruisingly tight grip only relaxes when Lady Inoiro takes her eyes off Itama and looks up at Orochimaru instead. Itama takes a shaky breath. Good job looking weak in your first major diplomatic meeting, idiot. “We understand the technique as a method to connect people’s hearts to each other, which creates harmony between them.”

Lady Inoiro leans back and folds her hands in front of her. “Most people think of it as a way to scout, or to aid communication on the battlefield or for purposes of subterfuge. How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Tarou wrote about how your clan used it to commune with birds,” mumbles Itama. “I couldn’t think of any reason to do that besides understanding what it’s like to be a bird.” It’s a stupid explanation. Of course it’s for scouting. “He said they told him that it was the same reason you use it with each other.”

When he glances back up, Lady Inoiro is smiling faintly. “That’s the way I prefer to think of it. The Yamanaka clan hasn’t been to war for two generations, but some of our more hot-headed members… Well, if that’s the reason you want to know about it, I can introduce you to a master. Tooru,” she calls to their escort in the hall, “can you go and find Master Yoruko?”

 

Master Yoruko is a man who barely looks old, in spite of the way his gold hair has faded to silver. He talks very, very slowly, which is frustrating for Orochimaru in a way Itama finds really funny, even though Itama also loses his train of thought three times in every sentence. Her eyebrow keeps twitching whenever it takes him an especially long time to get to the point, and Itama has to press a hand over his mouth so Master Yoruko won’t see him smiling.

“And so each seal, as one in itself, also builds cyclically on its fellows and on the whole, to create something more complex than a mere sequence. You see?” Itama is trying to write down the condensed version. He pauses just long enough to nod, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, and then tries to translate that last sentence into real words. He doesn’t see at all… but maybe he will when he studies his notes later. Is this some kind of test of patience that Lady Inoiro is giving them? “Excellent,” says Master Yoruko. “You’re a sharp child. Now, what are the differences between the method for _casting_ your mind and the method for _impressing_ your mind into another person’s? To understand this, first we need to understand the chakra nature of the mind—”

“Master Yoruko,” Orochimaru interrupts. “I don’t mean to be rude,” (her tone is _very_ rude) “but your points are difficult to follow. Can you explain without beating around the bush? Or perhaps summarize what you’ve said?”

Itama elbows her, and she glares at him sideways. Master Yoruko tips his head to rub at his forehead with the back of his hand. “I am not completely ignorant of the effect my manner of thought and speech has on my students. If you would believe it, I have improved from the speaking style of my youth.”

“Perhaps some diagrams,” says Orochimaru, shading toward desperate. Itama has never heard her sound like this before. It’s _hilarious_ and a little bit sweet how she’s working so hard to restrain her pride and learn from someone for once.

“Maybe if we try telling it back to you, you can tell us if we’re right?” asks Itama hopefully.

Master Yoruko makes a _go on_ gesture. Itama looks at Orochimaru.

“Individual seals help you regulate the flow of chakra in your body and mind, but a sequence of seals regulates it differently than the individual combination, because in essence you start the next seal before you’re finished with the current one.” Master Yoruko nods, and smiles faintly. “This isn’t specific to the Mind-Body Transmission technique, but it is part of the reason we failed.”

“From your description this afternoon, I believe that another great contributor to your earlier failures is your lack of chakra-sensing ability. As I was beginning to say, your failures were at the casting stage, not the impressing stage, of the technique, which indicates an inability to find your target, even were you performing the seal sequence correctly to prepare your mind to leave your body. Thus casting…”

It’s more of that, really. At least now they have permission to tell Master Yoruko when he’s being obtuse (that’s Orochimaru’s word, Itama doesn’t actually know what it means. But he can guess.) By full night, he’s teaching them to use limited-range chakra sensing. It turns out that Orochimaru has already worked on it with Tobirama, probably just so she can be as good as him at everything. And Itama has apparently been using contact chakra sensing to heal for two years.

This is how he ends up with his hand on Orochimaru’s head and his eyes closed to minimize embarrassment (it’s not working). He tries to hold the ram seal in his mind, but he keeps getting distracted by the fact that he’s touching Orochimaru’s face, and _wow_ he hopes she also has her eyes closed because he’s blushing.

He lets out an explosive breath and lets his hand fall back into his lap. “You try, Orochimaru. I’m not getting anywhere without being able to hold the seal.”

Despite hoping she wasn’t looking at him while he concentrated, he takes the opportunity to stare at her while her eyes are closed. There’s a faint frown line between her eyebrows, and he’s never noticed before that the dark clan markings around her eyes also color her eyelids a dark, smoky purple. Suddenly embarrassed again by how creepy he’s being, he closes his eyes.

A moment later there is another person in his mind.

!!!!, he thinks.

Orochimaru, says the other person. He knows, he says. Try complete sentences, maybe?

The feeling of Orochimaru seems to gather itself together and sharpen its focus. Hello, Itama, she says. I told you I’d get it before you.

Whatever! It’s just because I can’t use both hands! When I learn one-handed ram or something I’ll kick your butt!

Or maybe you’ll headbutt me, she says. He can practically see the sly smile that she always wears when she’s made a joke and wants everyone to know. He laughs.

Suddenly Orochimaru just feels like !!!! again, and then she disappears from his mind. Alarmed, he opens his eyes to find Master Yoruko gripping her by the shoulders. Her head lolls to one side, tipped back as if she can’t find the energy to keep it upright, and blood is running from her nose down into her slightly open mouth. Her eyes are open but unfocused.

“Orochimaru?” he says, leaning forward urgently. “What happened?”

“Not to worry,” says Master Yoruko, as if the technique he taught them did not just make Itama’s best friend start _bleeding from her face_. “She has only strained her mind. It is usual even for Yamanaka to have difficulty transmitting to large groups of people for more than a few seconds. She needs practice, and to build her tolerance, nothing more.”

“Orochimaru, can you _talk_?”

“Yes,” she says vaguely. Her eyelids flutter and she turns her head just enough to look at Itama. “I’m gathering myself. Shhhhh. And you, don’t touch me.”

Master Yoruko raises his eyebrows at her, because when she’s not trying to be polite Orochimaru is _incredibly_ rude. But he does let go of her shoulders. She falls backward onto the ground with a _thunk_ sound that makes Itama wince. He doesn’t dare touch her either, so he scoots himself over and awkwardly hovers in case she tells him to help her up. She doesn’t, though. After a minute or so she pushes herself back to a sitting position. Then, finding her face right next to Itama’s, she says, “We’re going to do it again until that stops happening.”

“Not right _now_ , though,” says Itama, because from her tone of voice he can tell she means _now_. “We haven’t eaten anything in…” He tries to remember when they actually last ate, but he’s struggling. Was it breakfast, at the Akimichi village? “I’m really hungry,” he concludes. “I’m not going to hold still and let you try to get into my head until I’ve eaten something. Master Yoruko, is there somewhere we can get food? I’m willing to make it myself.”

“You are an envoy from a clan offering an alliance,” says Master Yoruko, looking mildly shocked. “We would be remiss in our duties as hosts and as prospective allies if we forced you to make your own food. I will ask my apprentice to find something suitable. And you, young miss, should rest.”

When he turns his back, Orochimaru makes a disgusted face and mouths, _young miss_? Itama waves his hand at her to shut up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad it has been canonically established that overdoing it on Yamanaka secret techniques gives you a dramatic nosebleed


	9. Chapter 9

The next day after breakfast (and two hours more practice with the Mind-Body Transmission technique, after Orochimaru insists) Itama is very ready to get outside. Most of the paths inside the village have been cleared of snow, so moving around in his cart is a blessed non-issue. There isn’t all that much to see, and in fact it’s pretty similar to the Senju village except for the architecture. So Itama decides to see the people.

Yamanaka are out and about, doing errands or chatting or yelling at their kids not to do that it’s dangerous; and plenty of them are curious about him and Orochimaru. He loses count of the number of times he’s said “It’s because my legs don’t work but I like to go outside,” and “I’m Senju Itama, what’s your name?” and “She’s my bodyguard, but she’s shy.” He quickly stops trying to engage Orochimaru in the conversations. She genuinely hates almost everyone, which he kind of forgot since she doesn’t talk to people she hates. So she stands behind him and stares creepily at all the Yamanaka while he learns about daily life in the North Mountains. They have some cool traditions: rather than a demon in white funeral clothes, their death god is a cat with a split tail, made of fire. How do they come up with these things? They also seem to share the Akimichi’s superstition that rhinoceros beetles are lucky, and Itama sees several people wearing rhinoceros beetle amulets.

Tomura is one of them, a sixteen-year-old with a naginata strapped to his back and hair so blond it’s almost white. He and his friend Yuura are leaning against the side of a building, eating some kind of fruit Itama hasn’t seen before.

“So how’d it happen?” asks Tomura.

“In battle,” says Itama, because it’s technically true and he doesn’t want to go into how little it was really like a battle. “Against four Uchiha,” he adds, to make it sound like he’s bragging. He thinks he’s supposed to be bragging.

“Holy shit,” says Yuura. “They’re not alive any more, huh?”

“No,” says Itama, feeling sick. Hashirama, he heard afterward, killed them all in one impossibly heavy sword stroke, augmented with earth chakra. At the time he recalls that he thought the god of death was finally there to take him, and wept with relief. “Have you seen any battle?” he asks.

“Nah,” Yuura sighs, throwing the pit of his fruit over his shoulder into the alley behind him. “If there’s anyone to fight, they never make it up the mountain. Either the Deer or the Butterflies take care of them. Only Yamanaka who pass the chuunin test get to go down and help.”

Itama can practically feel Orochimaru radiating contempt behind him. “It’s good they want to keep people away from the fighting if they aren’t ready,” he says. “If I hadn’t been sent out to fight when I was eight, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Tomura’s pale face seems to grow even paler. “Eight? That’s how old my little sister is! That’s…”

Itama suddenly feels very old and tired next to these boys four years older than him. They’ve never known war at all. His heart aches, wishing Kawarama could have grown up here instead—he’d be almost eleven, now. He and Itama could be running around together picking weird yellow plums and trying to pretend they’re more grown-up than they are. With an effort, he says, “So what _do_ you do around here?”

It turns out that mostly what they do is train and make trouble for people older than them. Itama actually feels more comfortable talking to adults, which is weird. In his clan, Tomura and Yuura would have been adults two years ago, and would have killed dozens of people by now. He always hated the way things were in his clan, but he didn’t realize there was another way to do it. And he’s starting to wonder, feeling uneasy, what his clan can actually offer the Yamanaka, if they’re so peaceful that sixteen-year-olds don’t need to fight. They already have as much insurance as they need against invasion from their two partner clans. Maybe the Senju can take up farming in exchange for secret techniques? Or maybe an equal exchange of knowledge? The concept of an alliance is sounding more and more foolish the more he thinks about it.

He wants to get Orochimaru’s opinion on it, but they’re invited to lunch by one of the larger families in the village, and he spends three hours chatting with friendly elders and demonstrating tricks he can do in his cart for the younger children, and he forgets about ten minutes in. He’s beginning to realize just how much he was treated as a child at home, stuck in the house and given busywork so he doesn’t get bored of being useless. He likes being an older brother—he likes being an equal, not someone who needs to be taught things so he can be useful.

He misses Kawarama so much that he feels like he’s burning.

After three hours it’s about time to go back to Master Yoruko’s house, so it will be easier for Lady Inoiro’s messenger to find them when it’s time for the meeting. Takema is in the front room when they get back, talking to Master Yoruko about some advanced ninjutsu thing that they would need to listen for five minutes to even figure out what it is. She waves vaguely at them and takes another sip of tea as they pass.

In their room, Orochimaru slumps dramatically against the wall and fixes Itama with the kind of glare that wouldn’t even melt lard. She must be tired. He grimaces sympathetically at her and then settles in to start making notes about what he’s heard today. When he glances up briefly some time later she has Yurine wrapped around her arms and shoulders, and they’re whispering together almost soundlessly. Because she’s not looking at him, he permits himself a fond smile. When she’s not actively defending the walls of herself from those she considers hostile (everyone, including Itama), she has an air of peace. Softness, even, because without the spear of her gaze, her fluid movement and the gentle way she strokes Yurine make her look like illustrations of princesses Itama has seen.

Yurine flicks out her tongue at him as he accidentally makes eye contact with her, but she doesn’t seem to have told on him yet, so he just does a smile-grimace thing and goes back to writing.

Around sunset Lady Inoiro’s assistant comes to find them. Itama was prepared to spend a long time going over terms, but they don’t even go to talk to the clan head. Tooru just tells them, “Inoiro-sama requests to postpone negotiations until the Uchiha envoy arrives. She wants to have a joint alliance negotiation session, now that your two clans are friendly. I hope that is to your satisfaction.”

Itama doesn’t really process what she said until several minutes after Orochimaru has told her it’s fine and she’s gone away. “What?” he asks Orochimaru.

“There’s an Uchiha envoy coming tomorrow. Lady Inoiro wants them to join the alliance negotiation.”

Itama can really only think, _what?_

 

The next day when Yoruko’s apprentice Amiyu comes in to deliver a late breakfast, Itama thanks her, and she smiles. “You’re probably the pleasantest guests Master has ever had. And actually, you have a guest of your own. The Uchiha envoy wants to talk to you before the meeting with Inoiro-sama.”

Before Itama can say _absolutely not_ , Orochimaru says, “Let them in.” At Itama’s betrayed look she continues, “You’re going to have to look at an Uchiha eventually, now that we’re about to be allied with them. It might as well be now so you don’t do… whatever it is you did last time during the negotiation meeting.”

Amiyu looks at Itama curiously, clearly longing to ask what it is he did, but Orochimaru gives her a move-or-I’ll-murder-you look, and she goes out.

“At least you have some warning this time,” says Orochimaru.

“Dare I ask what happened last time?” says Takema.

Orochimaru is saying something rude to the tune of _no you don’t dare_ , but Itama drowns her out: “A month ago I came home and Hashirama had invited the Uchiha clan head into our house without telling me. I, uh, spent the rest of the night convinced I was going to die.”

Takema makes a sympathetic noise, puts her arm around Itama’s shoulders, and squeezes him. “Listen, if the Uchiha so much as looks at you funny, we can kick them out. We’re Master Yoruko’s guests and for now this is our room.”

“Mmm,” says Itama. His stomach is churning.

“Uchiha Hikaku, envoy,” says Amiyu outside the door. Itama’s nerves kick into overdrive and he glances at Orochimaru as the door slides open. She looks almost as tense as he feels, with three needles between her fingers and all her focus on whoever is in the doorway.

Itama forces himself to turn his head.

In the doorway is a tall young man with black eyes and, thankfully, dark brown hair pulled into a tail rather than the purple-black shared by no-one in any other clan. He doesn’t look _too_ much like an Uchiha, doesn’t have the moon-round face Itama sees in his nightmares.

He looks nervous. Good. He deserves to be even half as afraid as Itama is.

“Senju-san,” he says, bowing. “It seems our clan heads are both looking outside for alliances.”

There’s a long, horrible silence, during which Itama realizes that although Hikaku is looking at Takema, she and Orochimaru expect _him_ to say something. It’s not until Hikaku turns, confused, to look at Itama too (get his eyes _off_ me—) that Takema says, “Uchiha-san. I hope a mutual alliance will be able to make a road for permanent peace between us. Did you want to discuss something?”

She doesn’t offer him a seat, so he just stands there looming in the doorway. Itama likes him better at a distance. He can’t possibly be as fast as Tobirama, and Itama thinks Takema could even stop his brother. “Yes. My apologies for intruding, but what’s your name?”

“Takema.”

“Hikaku,” he says, even though Amiyu already introduced him. She’s hovering just behind the doorframe, not wanting to miss this hideously awkward meeting. “Good to meet you, Takema-san.” He pauses. “I know our clans aren’t exactly feeling friendly right now. I heard from Madara how the visit to the Senju village went. I was hoping to get your opinion on how viable an option it would be to try to secure a formal alliance through the Yamanaka.”

“I…” Takema visibly swallows and steels herself. “I wouldn’t say I’m a real diplomat. The clan doesn’t have any. But right now, even if Hashirama made an alliance, actually putting our clans in contact would probably end in bloodshed. If we tried to do any joint operations, for instance.”

Itama is carefully studying his hands instead of looking at Hikaku, because he kind of doesn’t want to see his death coming, but he does hear Hikaku sigh. “Yes. That’s about the state of things in our clan, too. Then you think an indirect alliance and continued détente is wiser.”

“Yes. I’m not sure why Lady Inoiro wants to hold the two alliance negotiations at the same time.”

“To save time? She seems like a busy woman. She’s kept me waiting for over an hour already.” Hikaku laughs awkwardly, but no-one else does. He clears his throat. “Ah, well, I should take my leave. Thank you for your consideration, Takema-san.”

Itama hears him bow, and then his footsteps.

When the sound fades, Itama flops backward off his cushion, throwing an arm over his face. His throat is tight all of a sudden, and his eyes sting, and he is _so tired_.

“Itama-kun?” says Takema.

He shakes his head. “I’m going back to sleep,” he mumbles.

“I get your breakfast, then,” says Orochimaru, entirely without sympathy.

“Sure, help yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Itama: there is basically no way this Uchiha is going to attack me  
> Also Itama: I am going to die for sure because of this person
> 
> The PTSD Experience (TM)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you refer to the Senju clan by their literal English translation, “the Thousand Hands,” don’t they sound like a creepy secret organization with sinister goals? OH also this is the "xtreme emotional turmoil" chapter

Although Hikaku is at the meeting, Itama isn’t going to look at him. This turns out to be kind of difficult, because they’ve been seated directly across the table from each other, each next to one of Lady Inoiro’s elders. Worse, this makes it _very_ easy for Hikaku to look at him, and Itama is going to be able to tell in his peripheral vision. To make things worse, Orochimaru stands so close behind him that she’s leaning slightly forward into the back of his cart. While Lady Inoiro is making introductions he has to flick her hand off his shoulder because she’s holding several needles that are certainly poisoned and they’re much too near his neck. Why on earth would she do something to make him _more_ nervous? It seems too cruel even for her, given what’s at stake.

Does she not want the alliance to go through? Or does she think it definitely will, even if Itama is a sweaty mess stumbling over his own words?

“…t in favor of the prospective alliances, given that we already have close ties with two very strong clans. I, however, believe that the Uchiha and the Senju both have something to offer. From your initial proposals, though, I’m not sure you understand what it is you can give us.”

Itama panics, tries to wipe all expression but polite interest off his face, and locks his eyes onto Lady Inoiro. He can probably guess the first part of her sentence, although he can’t currently remember the names of either of the elders or the Nara and Akimichi heirs she introduced. His eyes keep jumping halfway to Hikaku before he can pull them back to Lady Inoiro.

“Would you care to enlighten us, Inoiro-sama?” says Hikaku. It takes so much more energy than it should to avoid looking at him. There is no-one between them now, just the table.

“A five-clan alliance would be a powerful deterrent to _any_ attack. Even the Daimyou’s forces are a fraction of what ours would be. There are no clans between the mountains and the lands held by the Uchiha, which would allow us to expand into a large area suitable for farming.” In Itama’s peripheral vision he can see Hikaku nod in deferential agreement. “I personally am also interested in a meeting of cultures. I believe it would result in some very interesting innovations. Itama-kun has been making great strides in that area.”

Startled, Itama looks up at her. Has he?

She looks amused as she meets his eyes. “Not for nothing are the Senju called the clan of a thousand hands.”

“Yes, Inoiro-sama,” he says. It’s starting to sound like he won’t have to convince her, at least, but he’s not sure what he can offer the elders besides a mutual defense pact and a chance to claim farmland. He glances at Takema, on his right, and bites his lip. She raises her eyebrows at him, slightly panicked, as if to say, _I don’t know how to help you_.

He takes a deep breath and says, “Honored elders, what is your objection to the idea of mutual defense between the five clans?”

“Not for nothing,” says the old woman sitting on the left of the Nara clan heir, “are the Senju called a clan of eternal war.” Apparently, from Lady Inoiro’s slight nod, _someone_ actually does call the Senju that. “How are we to know that you, or the Uchiha, won’t draw us into a war we can’t afford?”

“My brother, the clan head, _won’t_ let that happen. Our father concentrated on war so much that he ignored everything else. Our younger brother died for that war when he was seven. Our father’s first thought when he agreed to shelter Orochimaru was to put her on the front lines, even though she’s a poisons and infiltration specialist who never used a sword. He saw his clan as nothing but sacrificial bodies—I was one of those bodies. Hashirama finds that way of thinking _horrifying_. Even before we made peace he was in talks with the Uchiha clan heir, against our father’s wishes and without him knowing. I promise you, there is no-one who will try harder to preserve peace than Senju Hashirama.”

That gets approving looks from the elders, and Itama slumps backward a little in his cart, relieved. “And the Uchiha?” asks the man sitting next to Itama.

“Honored Elder Inoyo,” says Hikaku (Itama’s body decides to sit up straight, apparently without him telling it to). “The Uchiha have suffered just as much under Tajima’s leadership. Madara feels very similarly about the loss of his own younger brothers and his comrades, and there are many among the Uchiha who feel that honor demands we put an end to war. Madara asked me to propose a stipulation for the alliance: that if either of our clans attacks the other, or becomes involved in an unnecessary conflict that might draw our allies into a war, they should be cut off from the alliance, and in the most extreme case the other parties are free to retaliate. It is our hope that this will act as a deterrent in the case that some dissident faction within either the Senju or the Uchiha intends to break the promises made by their whole clan.”

That’s a _good_ idea. Itama finds himself a little jealous of how well Hikaku said it. He knows so many big words. Because he’s half again Itama’s age and he’s a _real_ grown-up. Ugh.

The elders are nodding too. The Nara heir straightens up in her seat, a kind of subtle motion that draws attention to her. “My assessment is, it’s strategically sound. Even if Madara is fifteen, he’d have to be a real idiot to let his clan go to war with the promise of four other clans kicking his ass for it. Not to say that there aren’t any idiots among the Uchiha, and the Senju. But any clan head worth their salt will be able to keep their people in line, even the idiots.” She subsides back into her chair and lifts a hand to tug at the knot on top of her head. A few strands of hair come loose and float down over her face; she blows them off, and they fall right back down. She doesn’t look like a clan heir at all, unlike the proper Akimichi on Lady Inoiro’s other side, sitting straight and attentive.

As for her point… Itama honestly isn’t sure that Hashirama _can_ keep idiots in line. No-one is afraid of breaking his orders, and his only real tools are his inherited position and the charisma that comes from genuinely liking and caring about people. The clan will probably grow to respect him, but right now… he’s hard to respect. He’s fifteen and he sulks when his little brother eats the last meat bun.

“For keeping idiots in line…” Hikaku takes and releases a breath. Nervous again. “It seems like it might help the most to get the elders invested. The envoys here, and the leadership of both our clans, are very young, so we would appreciate any advice you see fit to give us.”

Lady Inoiro smiles. She looks smug in the way cats do. “Of course we won’t leave you to negotiate this new peace alone. If the terms here are acceptable to all parties, we will have a summit for the clan leaders and selected elders. The prosperity of one clan will be the prosperity of all our clans.”

There’s something that bothers Itama about that, but he couldn’t say what it is. After all, it might be the pressure of Hikaku’s eyes.

He thinks he’s supposed to be saying something, but he doesn’t know what. He glances hopefully at Takema again, and this time she clears her throat.  “That sounds like an excellent idea. I believe I can speak for Hashirama already when I say that he will approve of the terms we’ve outlined so far. Though I, uh, I realize that there are more terms we need to set. The rules of mutual defense and other kinds of aid. The division and sharing of farmland. Clan techniques.”

“Rules for intermarriage,” adds Hikaku. “My elders will be _very_ interested in rules for intermarriage.”

The adults at the table laugh, though Itama isn’t sure why it’s funny.

 

He kind of struggles to keep up with the meeting. He doesn’t think it would be… professional to take notes, so he just tries to fix everything in his mind. How to get things done. How to manage a clan. How to agree on anything with representatives from five clans and elders who need everything to be just so.

He isn’t really able to contribute that much because no-one stops to explain any of the _reasons_ why they say things and agree or disagree. Still, no-one spends any time scolding him for saying stupid things, and he’s too busy trying to keep up to scold himself. And he does learn a _lot_ about what everyone wants. The Yamanaka elders are trying to keep everything as much the same as they can; Akimichi Chouen just wants to make sure the solution is whatever doesn’t hurt anyone; Lady Inoiro is trying to gently change her clan while minimizing death and conflict; Uchiha Hikaku wants an alliance at all costs. Itama is getting used to him, a well-spoken man who hides his desperation behind a blank face and beautiful words. Who just once tried to make a joke and then regretted it. It’s kind of hard to hate him, and almost easy to forget he’s an Uchiha. Itama isn’t sure if that’s good or very dangerous, because different parts of him are screaming different things.

When they’re finally released from the meeting after writing letters to send to their clan heads, Itama is as tired as if he’s been moving all day. All he wants is to go to sleep, but Orochimaru goes off somewhere and comes back to shove a bowl of rice under his nose. He gives her a weary don’t-make-me-eat-this expression, which she regards with contempt. “Are you going to make me feed this to you. I _will_ poison it.”

He falls backward onto his futon and drops his arm over his eyes. “That threat is getting a lot less scary the more times you say it and don’t actually poison me. You literally haven’t poisoned me even once, even though you used to hate me.”

“We’re not in the Senju village, now,” says Orochimaru. He hears chopsticks clink against the side of a bowl. “You may have told everyone I’m a poisoner, but who would believe an envoy’s bodyguard was the one who tried to kill him? I even have a backup, in case I still care about the alliance going through. But I don’t have to return to the Senju after you die. I can disappear. There are no consequences for me any more.”

“But you _wouldn’t_ ,” says Itama, with way more certainty than he actually feels. “You wouldn’t kill me, because you… like me.”

“That’s quite the assumption you’re making, Itama-kun.”

He can no longer bear not being able to see what she’s doing, so he lets his arm slide off his face and glances over. He’s trying not to show his worry on his face as he watches her hands taking rice from the bowl to her mouth, but he’s not sure it’s working. He swallows, heart pounding, and says, “That’s the… the only assumption I can really… If I don’t believe that I can’t…” His next breath shakes, and he knows she can hear it; his eyes sting. “You do this when you’re afraid. You try to scare other people. What are you afraid of?”

Orochimaru’s body goes from her showy relaxation to _readiness_. Fear twists in his gut, and he forces himself to sit up and meet her eyes. “You’re not the only one who watches people. It’s all I’ve been able to do for almost three years. You’re not the only one who has to watch everyone because they’re not safe.”

“I can see you’re trying to establish a common ground between us,” she says, tilting her chin up to look at him from half-lidded eyes. “Adorable. There is a key difference between you and me, Itama-kun. You have as many reasons to be afraid as there are… well, things in the world. I have no reason to be afraid, because I destroy whatever threatens me.”

And he understands. _He_ is the threat. That’s why she’s trying to convince him, and maybe herself, that she’s going to destroy him. Although his heart is pounding _you’re going to die, going to die_ , he leans forward and takes Orochimaru’s hand, the one that’s clenched around her chopsticks. “I’m sorry for scaring you. If you tell me what I did, I’ll try not to do it again. I mean, unless it was ‘not taking your threats seriously,’ but you know, I don’t _only_ like you because you’re really good at poisoning people. I don’t think you’d prove anything by killing me.”

He stops there, because her jaw and neck have tightened so much it looks painful—her eyes are wide as she stares past his shoulder. He’s never seen her cry, but if she did, he thinks this is what she’d look like. “Um,” he says. “If what you’re scared of is having someone you don’t want to kill, that’s pretty normal. For shinobi.”

“Shut up,” she hisses through her teeth, still staring past him like if she doesn’t look at him he won’t see the tears welling in her eyes. “I’m not, and never have been, normal. Don’t tell me what I feel.”

He leans forward until his forehead rests on her shoulder. It feels unspeakably dangerous, like rolling into the Uchiha village with his clan’s insignia tied around his head. But she doesn’t try to stop him, or hurt him, which is maybe a kind of progress.

“Sorry, Orochimaru,” he says softly into her kimono. “I’ll try not to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITAMA TRYING TO TALK HIS BEST FRIEND DOWN FROM KILLING HIM TO PROVE SHE HAS NO EMOTIONS!! I cannot deal with how incredibly stupid Orochimaru is. Here’s part of that last scene from Orochimaru’s point of view. I had to write it because she’s kind of a tough nut to crack, emotionally. She DOES think a couple rude thoughts about Itama being disabled, but at least she has the sense not to say anything. Honestly, Orochimaru’s head is just DEATH DEATH BLOOD MEAN THOUGHTS 100% of the time.
> 
> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> “But you wouldn’t,” says Itama. “You wouldn’t kill me, because you… like me.”
> 
> She wants to spit in his face to show him how wrong he is, that he can’t know her despite how much she wants him to be able to. “That’s quite the assumption you’re making, Itama-kun.” She takes another bite of rice with mechanical nonchalance, and her jaw hurts from the tension.
> 
> He uncovers his eyes and looks at her, blank-faced. He shouldn’t be intimidating, this crippled, idealistic child. There’s no earthly reason to be intimidated by him. The only way Orochimaru has ever dealt with this feeling is to destroy something. She eliminated her fear of pain at the age of five by carving up her own body, seeking out the most agonizing venoms—she destroyed the man who murdered her aunt, and the man who tried to send her to die—she would kill Hashirama in a moment if he weren’t so hilariously biddable.
> 
> She sees Itama’s throat working as he swallows. “That’s the… the only assumption I can really… If I don’t believe that I can’t…” His next breath shakes, and he closes his eyes to hide the tears she knows are gathering there. Good. He’s afraid. “You do this when you’re afraid. You try to scare other people. What are you afraid of?”
> 
> Her breath almost catches, her jaw clenches, her whole body readies itself to kill. Not yet, she tells it. Not yet. She needs to know how he has this insight that she could not have put into words until this moment.
> 
> “You’re not the only one who watches people,” he says. “It’s all I’ve been able to do for almost three years. You’re not the only one who has to watch everyone because they’re not safe.” His eyes have a sort of clear determination that she detests. He’s playing her, in some way she doesn’t truly understand.
> 
> “I can see you’re trying to establish a common ground between us,” she says with all the bored contempt she can summon (which is quite a lot). “Adorable. There is a key difference between you and me, Itama-kun. You have as many reasons to be afraid as there are… well, things in the world. I have no reason to be afraid, because I destroy whatever threatens me.”
> 
> “I’m sorry for scaring you,” he says in his horribly earnest way, and actually puts his hand over hers. She wants to break his wrist, to cut that hand off, but she can’t quite force herself to move. “If you tell me what I did, I’ll try not to do it again. I mean, unless it was ‘not taking your threats seriously,’ but you know, I don’t only like you because you’re really good at poisoning people. I don’t think you’d prove anything by killing me.”
> 
> She hates him, truly hates him, for understanding what’s happening to her before she did. She can feel that she’s going to cry, which she hasn’t done since she gained the ability to form long-term memories. Not even when the three living members of her clan abandoned her to die, not even when she saw her parents eviscerated in front of her. He cannot have this much power over her.
> 
> “Um,” he says, in his horrible stupid uncertain voice. “If what you’re scared of is having someone you don’t want to kill, that’s pretty normal. For shinobi.”
> 
> “Shut up,” she hisses through her teeth, focusing on the wall behind him so she won’t have to see pity on his face. “I’m not, and never have been, normal. Don’t tell me what I feel.”
> 
> He leans forward until his forehead rests on her shoulder, and still she doesn’t move to kill him. She just sits there silently, trembling with the force of her loathing for both him and herself, while he mumbles into her kimono, “Sorry, Orochimaru. I’ll try not to.”


	11. Chapter 11

For the next few days it’s on and off meetings to write a draft of the treaty (still hard and no fun at all) and when he’s not in meetings Itama practices Mind-Body Transmission. Since Orochimaru is sulking about not denying she has emotions hard enough, he practices with the messenger hawks Master Yoruko says usually act as scouts. It’s very different from sending his mind to Orochimaru—a bird’s mind sort of… doesn’t take up very much space. It’s very condensed, like snow that has been packed down into a tiny ball of ice. Somehow it seems to slip to a different level against Itama’s mind, and he can’t _talk_ to it because a hawk doesn’t think in words, it thinks with its eyes. Trying to share Orochimaru’s eyes is kind of like edging around someone in a room that’s way too full of furniture and also the whole room is swinging from side to side. With a bird you can just kind of walk past them and look out the window.

He thinks that’s maybe just her, though. Nothing about her is ever not difficult.

Another thing he can do with birds is suggest things to them. He can’t suggest ‘you should fly,’ but he can suggest the feeling of looking down on everything far and small below, or the way it feels to be supported by air. It’s _wonderful_. He can just look and feel through the hawk—it’s a perfect creature, flawless and unattached. It knows home and it knows where to get meat, and that’s all it needs.

Coming out of the hawk’s mind is more difficult than slipping in. Itama’s human body is small and heavy and useless for a lot of the things he wishes he could do. He _aches_ for the feeling of air under his feathers, the feeling of diving like a striking thunderbolt, the feeling that he can go anywhere he wants. If a hawk’s body is its freedom, then Itama’s body is his prison—he can escape the prison of his house, but he just trades it for a bigger one, the places where there’s a flat smooth path for his cart. Because the prison is inside him. Sometimes, when it gets really bad, he wants to throw a tantrum like he did when he was very young, but even if he did it wouldn’t help. There’s no-one here to see it and tell him things will be better.

“What are you doing?”

He jumps. There _is_ someone here. He knows who it is before he turns around, by the voice, but he turns anyway to face Hikaku, who is standing some distance away at the entrance to the garden. It’s… polite.

He likes Hikaku best where he can see him.

“Um, Mind-Body Transmission.” He gestures with the hand covered by a thick glove, though the hawk hasn’t returned yet. “I was practicing with the messenger hawks.”

“You _what_?”

“It’s one of the Yamanaka secret techniques? You can share minds with someone?”

“Really?” asks Hikaku, wide-eyed. He sits down on the edge of the wall, all the way across the small park from Itama. He probably knows he makes Itama nervous. Shinobi know how to read body language. “They taught you one of their secret techniques? That’s… impressive.” Itama half-smiles down at his lap. He’d like to be _impressive_. But he can’t imagine ever managing it. “If you don’t mind me asking, what does it do? I mean, I guess you told me. What is it like?”

“A little like talking,” Itama mumbles. “A little like sitting really close. Um, not with birds. With birds it’s more like being a bird. I haven’t tried being a human. Um, no…”

Hikaku laughs softly. “Were you practicing with your bodyguard? You seem like good friends.”

“Um, yeah.”

There’s an extremely awkward silence, during which Itama looks at the tiny silver buds on the trees, the dirt between the paving stones, his own pluming breath—anything but Hikaku. No matter if he’s wearing sky blue and has an angular face, Itama still knows he’s an Uchiha.

“Do you—” When Itama glances up, Hikaku is rubbing the back of his neck as if to ground himself. “Could… I try?”

Itama doesn’t want to be in Hikaku’s mind. He doesn’t want Hikaku close enough to _touch_ him. “Sure,” says his mouth, prioritizing politeness over common sense. “I—” _Get over it, Itama. He is absolutely not going to hurt you, considering what’s at stake. Be brave. Be the one who reaches for peace_.

He raises his bare hand, and it hardly trembles. “I have to be able to touch you. I can only do contact sensing.”

Hikaku is standing in front of him. Hikaku is crouching in front of him. Hikaku’s hand is extended. Itama has to be the one to do it.

_Now’s your chance. He’s not expecting to have his throat slit. He doesn’t even know you can do it without weapons. You never told anyone you’re a medic. It would be so easy, you’d just have to lean forward a tiny bit and_

rest his fingers on Hikaku’s palm. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to banish those thoughts because _Hikaku might hear them_. He casts his line. The hook catches.

He catches confusion, nervousness, worry, anticipation in Hikaku’s totally unguarded thoughts. He’s not a _bit_ like Orochimaru, who knows how to keep her head in order and hide what she doesn’t want others to see. She thinks like an infiltrator; Hikaku thinks like someone who has never needed to fear discovery.

A thought floats past: Did it work yet? Is he here? and Itama realizes that he is very good at not being noticed. He has so much practice hiding his true thoughts, even from himself. How is it that he feels older than a nineteen-year-old shinobi who has seen dozens of battles and run hundreds of missions? How is it that he feels _ancient_ , like he’s carrying a mountain around on his back?

Is that you? Your thoughts feel kind of different. You seem tired.

Itama slams shut the box his emotions are leaking out of, and very deliberately says, You seem nervous.

It’s a bit silly. It’s not like you’re going to hurt me. You’re just a kid! I just don’t want to mess this up. (I know you’re afraid of me I think I know why you’re so _little_ I don’t want to mess this up) It’s a big deal to be the representative of my clan in a time like this, when we’re finally making peace. A big responsibility. (envy you have two others a responsibility shared you’re not alone)

Hikaku’s openness is a little hard to bear, like Itama is feeling two sets of emotions. But still, it’s… useful. He doesn’t know Itama knows what he’s thinking. It is a big responsibility, Itama says. He kind of feels like his head is going to explode, only he doesn’t have a head right now. He realizes what it is and blurts out, Sorry I have to—

And then he’s back in his own body, feeling dizzy, with a wet spot on his upper lip and the taste of blood in his mouth. He’s been borrowing other bodies for probably an hour, and he forgot that humans are harder.

“Itama-kun? Itama-kun, what’s going on? Are you all right?”

“This is what happens when you talk to humans,” he says vaguely. “It’ll stop.”

And then, embarrassingly, he passes out.

 

He blinks open his eyes, and then lifts a hand to rub them. They feel dry, though it takes a moment to place why—the mountain air dries them out more than the air at home. He’s sitting in his cart, but now with a blanket tucked around him. His mouth still tastes faintly of blood.

Takema appears on his right. “How are you feeling?”

“Mnyugh,” says Itama. After a moment he corrects himself to, “Fine, I guess.”

“Hikaku-san was worried you were going to bleed out, somehow,” she chides. “Be more careful.” She sighs, and leans against the wall next to his chair. Ah, they’re inside now. “Lady Inoiro seems to be pleased that you’re working hard, though. The way she spoke of it, it sounded like every young Yamanaka goes through a phase of anemia while they’re learning their limits. She left some blood pills.”

Itama lets a blood pill and some water be poured into his mouth while he’s still waking up.

Once he’s had some horrible cold leftover rice, and is feeling mostly coherent, he says, “Where’s Orochimaru?”

“I assume the same place she was before you fainted. Why? You were only out for a quarter hour.”

He was hoping she’d been worried. But there’s really no reason to tell her about this at all, so he just shrugs, embarrassed. “Um, anyway, I think I’ll just stay in for a while and read.”

“Aren’t you going to ask about Hikaku-san?”

He wasn’t, no. “Where is he, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He was very worried about you, though. I just barely managed to convince him to leave before you woke up, since I figured you wouldn’t appreciate him hovering over you.”

“Thanks.”

He slithers out of his cart and onto the floor where his pile of scrolls is, taking the blanket with him. He’s partway through a history of the Yamanaka clans and how they became allied with the Akimichi and Nara, and he wants to finish it before all the delegates have to leave tomorrow. Reading is hard while he’s feeling so sluggish, but he does manage to get absorbed in it. It’s just getting to the good part, where the clan heads symbolically handicap themselves to show their good intentions, when the door slides open.

Itama thinks he might be gaining longer-range sensing ability, because he could swear he’s feeling Orochimaru’s foul mood.

When he looks up she gives him a venomous glare and then turns and proceeds to ignore him from the other side of the room. He keeps glancing up and almost saying something, and then thinking that no, she’s definitely going to do something mean to him if he does. So he tries to concentrate on his reading. It’s hard, even though this part is really cool, because of the anger radiating out of the opposite corner of the room.

Itama wonders a couple times whether he’s turning into a real sensor like Tobirama, but he can’t sense anyone else’s emotions, so maybe it’s just because he knows her well. Or maybe she’s learned to do the opposite of chakra sensing, to push chakra out so everyone knows how she’s feeling?

Whatever it is, she doesn’t manage to stay that angry for too long. She gets distracted—when Itama looks up he sees that she’s reading too. She’s probably really happy to have scrolls to read since she’s not allowed in the Senju archives. She must have read a lot before her clan was destroyed: she never looks frustrated or holds the scroll close to her face to squint at kanji she doesn’t know.

Itama quickly looks back down at his own scroll, because if she sees him looking she’ll glare at him again.

The door slides open. “Itama, meeting. Inoiro-sama says it’s the last one, though.”

Itama starts looking for his brake so he can get up onto the cart, can’t find it, panics, and looks beseechingly at Takema.

She sighs. “Hikaku probably left it in the park. I’ll check after the meeting. Uh, Orochimaru, are you…?”

“Staying here,” says Orochimaru, not looking up from her scroll.

“You don’t look like a great bodyguard,” Takema points out. “I’d rather show unity.”

“I’m _not_ united with the Senju,” says Orochimaru, so quietly that Itama doesn’t think Takema heard her. Louder she says, “I have reading to catch up on.”

Takema looks at Itama and grimaces, but says nothing as she comes to hold the cart for him to get up. She clearly doesn’t feel like she can tell Orochimaru what to do. Hashirama decided to send someone _nice_ instead of someone with real authority, probably the _only_ nice veteran in the clan. Itama feels very briefly guilty that Hashirama might have done it to make him feel more comfortable, and then pushes that thought away to lean over and get his staves so they can go.

Before his courage fails him, at the door, he says, “I hope you enjoy your reading.” And he leaves before he has to see Orochimaru’s reaction.

 

The meeting is the same as every meeting, except now he _kind of_ knows what’s going on. It’s harder to concentrate than normal because Hikaku keeps trying to catch his eye and he’s a little jittery from how much he just wants to go home. But they do finish writing the first draft of the treaty, and Lady Inoiro has replies from Hashirama and the Uchiha head that she gives to him and Hikaku to read out loud.  Maybe she didn’t want to read Hashirama’s letter because his handwriting is difficult. But both of them agree to come to the summit, Hashirama wants to invite an Uzumaki representative, and they’ve already started talking to the elders, so Itama is content enough.

He’s just glad he isn’t going to have to be at the summit. These meetings just make him feel dumb and tired, not important. The only thing that dims the sunshine feeling of getting to go home again is the fact that they’re making the journey with Hikaku.

Dims? Is that right? Now that Itama has seen what his mind is like, it seems kind of stupid to be scared of him. Orochimaru, however…

He doesn’t even _see_ Orochimaru for most of the journey home. He can sometimes hear her leaping through the trees when he stops his cart for a moment. But she doesn’t talk to anyone. Hikaru doesn’t talk too much either, but he does sing. At first he sings under his breath, but Itama requests to hear what he’s singing, and he gets louder. They’re travelling songs, he says, that his grandmother taught him, from when the Uchiha didn’t have a village yet. Sometimes patrols use them to coordinate, but mostly he just likes to remember them because they sound good. They have a rhythm, a swing, a weight behind them, like someone walking with purpose. A lot of them mention gods Itama has never heard of, but most are just sort of ‘we don’t love to travel but we’ve got to do it.’ He starts learning them too, because he likes having a rhythm to plant his staves in the ground and feel his wheels turning over the dirt.

On the way to the mountains he felt like a burden. Now he feels a bit like a hawk, following the road they made back in the direction of home. Hikaku even says he has a nice voice, so he sings loud enough that birds startle into the air from a hundred meters away. Takema joins in with her strong raspy voice, and it’s too loud for bad thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: In case you’re wondering, Itama IS way better at Mind-Body Transmission than Orochimaru is. He can do it for a lot longer without suffering ill effects. In this case he just happened to be really stressed out and was Borrowing a hawk for an hour beforehand. Anyway, in real life I think fainting for 15 whole minutes from blood pressure problems is REALLY BAD but it's narratively convenient for scene transitions, so.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah! a huge amount of things happen in this chapter! a reunion! a very awkward visit in which Itama realizes people think he's competent and interesting (but doesn't internalize it)! the summit! the introduction of a very old friend!

Tobirama and Hashirama are waiting for them at the village’s north wall—Tobirama must have sensed them coming. Itama doesn’t have much time to think about it, because as soon as he sees them he’s being crushed against Hashirama’s chest, and maybe cried on.

“Big Brother, you’ll break my ribs!” he says, laughing, as he wraps his arms around Hashirama’s neck. “I missed you too.”

“You’re saaaaafe,” Hashirama mumbles into his shoulder. “I’m so proud of my baby brother! A diplomat, and you’re only twelve! By the time you’re my age you’ll have surpassed me!”

Itama really, really doubts that, but he just smiles and messes up Hashirama’s hair. It’s getting long.

When Hashirama has finally put him down and started interrogating Takema, Tobirama comes forward to offer a much gentler hug. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he murmurs. “I won’t say I doubted that you’d be fine…”

“But you worry. I know. It’s your duty as a big brother.”

Tobirama smiles at him, but soon enough his eyes start to wander. “Where’s Orochimaru?”

Itama looks down at his lap and puffs out his cheeks. “She’s mad at me for some reason. No, I think she’s mad I made her admit we’re friends.”

Tobirama gives him the kind of sideways look that says _isn’t that just what you’d expect from her?_ “She’s the type who won’t back down unless she has a good reason. Maybe it was foolish to make her admit that she considers you a friend.” But when Itama gives him a pleading expression he does his little quiet half-laugh and says, “I’ll talk to her.” Itama just hopes he’ll be able to get through to her, because she’s very good at willful misunderstanding.

Suddenly he remembers what he wanted to say the most of all. “Tobirama!” he says, grabbing his brother’s hand. “I learned Mind-Body Transmission! I want to show you! And—it, well, it might be useful for talking to Orochimaru. Can I, right now?”

Tobirama nods, looking a little bemused.

Cast—catch. Tobirama’s mind is exactly how Itama pictured it, kind of cold and hard in the way it protects something warm in the center. Itama doesn’t even try to use words, he just pushes out his feelings of excitement and glad-to-be-home and so-much-to-tell-you. And kind of whispers that showing your honesty is a good way to make people trust you/shares a little of how it went with Hikaku.

This time he returns to his body on purpose before he can start to feel tired, because he likes the feeling of control and also because if he starts bleeding his brothers will wrap him in a blanket so he can never escape the house. He grins up at Tobirama, and is startled to see that Tobirama’s eyes are wet.

“I’m starting to understand what you saw when you first learned about this technique,” he says quietly. “You saw what I couldn’t. Your pursuit of your vision has already brought us close to the largest alliance in history. Itama…” He glances down and to the side, blinks a few times. “I… I want you to understand how powerful you are.”

Itama’s heart trips, swoops, and soars. It’s all _true_ , but he’s never thought of it that way. He grips Tobirama’s hand and tries to project gratitude through his chakra, so Tobirama can sense it.

 

“She’s being difficult,” Tobirama tells him later—several days later, since Orochimaru is difficult to find when she doesn’t want to be found. “But she’ll stay. Though really, when is she not?”

Itama sighs and nods, because really, when _is_ she not?

“Do you think she’s having difficulty adjusting?” asks Hashirama. “I don’t want to pressure her if we’re making her uncomfortable.”

Itama directs a commiserating look at Tobirama. They can’t exactly tell their optimistic brother that she is purposefully de-adjusting herself out of pique. Maybe he’ll get revenge on her. Only, revenge on Orochimaru is—“We should be _extra_ nice to her, then. Oh, is this it?”

“Um, I think so. Helloooo?”

A woman opens the door and leans out. “There’s no need to shout, Hashirama-sama. You’ll wake Yoshi.”

“Oh,” Hashirama whispers loudly. “Sorry. Umm… Miyu-san.”

Miyu smiles at him and backs out of the doorway. “Come in, please.”

Hashirama steps in and starts putting on house slippers, leaving Itama and Tobirama to wonder how his cart is going to get up on the porch and past the genkan. To minimize fuss, Tobirama just carries it. It’s awkward for him, Itama can tell, and he takes a small chunk out of the doorframe.

Miyu notices anyway and apologizes until Itama’s whole body gets hot and he starts to wish he hadn’t come. She wouldn’t still be talking if it were just his brothers.

Eventually Hashirama notices and starts talking to her about her mother, Elder Tatoushima. Itama misses most of it because he gets stuck thinking about how he shouldn’t have come. He’s just an inconvenience, it’s not like he’s _actually_ contributing anything by being here, the more he thinks about it the more showing him off in public seems like some kind of weird play for pity. The leadership of the clan is weakened! We need to unite with other clans to survive!

There’s a cup of tea in front of him but he’s too nervous to touch it.

He feels like everyone is looking at him even though he knows they have no reason to. Or do they? Does he really look that strange? They can’t _see_ his legs, carefully hidden under his over-long hakama. Maybe he’s drawing attention because of how he looks like he’s about to cry.

His name jolts him to awareness just in time to perform a shaky bow. Only after he looks up does he realize he was being introduced to Elder Tatoushima. “I’ve heard only good things about you from Mako-san,” she says. Her whole face transforms into a smile, and he can’t help but smile back.

“M-Mako-jiji-sama has been so patient with me,” he manages. “I owe him a great debt of gratitude.”

“He finds it a pleasure to work with you! Now, Hashirama, you wanted to talk about the treaty summit?”

“Yes, honored elder! You’ve been so helpful while we were planning to divert people’s energies so they won’t fight. I think you have the kind of clear head and instinct for mediating conflicts that will be necessary at the summit!”

“Of course I’ll come,” says Elder Tatoushima, smiling again. “What is our plan?”

Hashirama starts talking about creating jobs and distributing resources in a new world where the good of one clan really is the good of the other five, about integrating the Uzumaki into the alliance even though they live so far away, about writing terms that will build a foundation for stability. Most of it is stuff that they talked about in the North Mountains that Itama wrote to him, so Itama only listens with half an ear. It turns out Elder Tatoushima is just as worried as Itama about what hundreds of Senju warriors are going to do with their time. She says they’ve been sent to hunt, but they’re still restless and ill at ease. Miyu adds that they’ve been spending their free time getting drunk and yelling at midnight.

“Maybe we should build more breweries,” Itama suggests absently. “Maybe they’d like to staff them.”

Elder Tatoushima and Miyu start roaring with laughter at this, to Itama’s bemusement.

“Well,” says Elder Tatoushima, “You’ll be at the summit, I expect?” He isn’t sure who she’s talking to until she leans forward to poke him in the chest and says, “Itama-kun.”

“Uh, wh, why?”

She raises her shaggy gray eyebrows. “You understand the treaty better than any other member of this clan. You helped write it!” She tilts her head as if she’s about to tell him a secret. “And don’t you want to make your name as a diplomat?” She lowers her voice even further to say, “Better hurry up, or Tobirama will get famous before you.”

Then she sits back and cackles, leaving Itama sort of warmly bewildered.

The treaty has been nothing but boring and annoying so far. Being in meetings has mostly made him feel stupid, unprepared, and babyish. And he really, really wants to be there, to prove that he’s none of those things.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re right. They do need me.” As if saying it confidently enough will make it true.

 

Deciding to go to the summit means that he has to decide to be brave. Hashirama has invited the Uchiha clan head to their house _again_ , like he can’t go meet at the Uchiha village. At least this time he told Itama first, so that Itama can be sitting stiffly in his best clothing, crushing Tobirama’s hand under the table, when Madara and Hashirama come in. Madara gives him some kind of Look, which he takes for an assessment: is Itama going to start crying again? He’s _not_ , because he was ready for this and he knows where he is today. Right now he knows for absolutely sure that his brothers won’t let him get hurt.

After Madara, Hikaku walks in. Itama perks up; he wasn’t expecting to see another friendly face. Hikaku smiles at him and does a little wave, and when everyone sits down he sits on Itama’s other side. Hashirama and Madara seem to be arguing about something, but Itama’s not paying attention because Hikaku leans in and whispers, “I wanted to come visit and see how you’re doing. Or what you’re doing. You make my little sister look lazy!”

Itama’s face grows warm. “Um, thanks? I’m mostly working on my sensing with Takema-san. She says I could probably train to be as good as Tobirama. Oh! I should introduce you. This is my big brother Tobirama. Tobirama, this is Hikaku, the Uchiha envoy to the Yamanaka.”

They both make kind of goofy sitting-down bows, and Tobirama says, “Would you like some tea, Hikaku-san?”

“Yes, thank you.” There’s a pause while Tobirama gets up from the table. Hashirama and Madara are still arguing, but they take a moment to nod at Tobirama when he pours them tea. Madara is red in the face and he seems like he’s pouting, which isn’t very terrifying of him. “Do the three of you have anyone taking care of you?” Hikaku asks after a little while.

Itama turns toward him, frowning, but it’s Tobirama who answers before he can. “We take care of ourselves, Hikaku-san. We’re more than capable.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Hikaku coughs, looks away, and takes another sip of tea. “I suppose no-one is really the age they look. We’re all killers here.”

Maybe he was talking to the Yamanaka kids too. If Itama saw Yuura and Tomura living on their own he really would wonder who was taking care of them.

Hikaku seems to have nothing more to say, and Itama has no reply to that, so he now has the more difficult task of ignoring Madara, who is unfortunately across the table from him. He keeps his eyes lowered and tries to build the least scary personality he can just from Madara’s words: Madara is stubborn and argues points when he shouldn’t. But it also seems like he’s studied a lot, and Itama suspects that he’s smarter than Hashirama. All in all, Itama doesn’t like him much. But he isn’t going to panic when he sees the Uchiha clan head, unless he’s having a really bad day.

As they’re leaving, Hikaku squeezes Itama’s shoulder and tells him, “You did amazing.”

It’s kind of patronizing, but it still makes him feel like he’s glowing. Someone _noticed_.

 

The summit is chaotic, because no clan brought less than four representatives. All in all there are twenty-eight people there, all of them older and taller than Itama. Hikaku is there, and Lady Inoiro, and Elder Chougo, and everyone from the treaty-writing meetings, and of course his brothers. There’s also Uchiha Madara, who still looks a little like a walking nightmare. But Itama stays occupied with introducing himself and bowing and carefully memorizing names and faces. This is the first time he’s ever met any Uzumaki, even though they’re supposed to have been allies since Itama’s grandfather was clan head. Even the elders have vibrant blood-red hair. All except the heir, whose hair is actually magenta, a color Itama has only ever seen on wildflowers. And they’re _covered_ in tattoos that he desperately wants to ask them about.

By the time everyone gets seated—this involves Hashirama _growing_ a pavilion out of the ground, already complete with chairs and an enormous six-sided table, to impress the other delegates—Itama is a little bit tired. Still, he does his best to pay attention and represent his clan well. He’s at the far right of the Senju side of the table, next to Uzumaki Elder Shio and as far away as he can get from the Uchiha without having to look at them. Hashirama seems to be in over his head, and Tobirama watches without saying anything, but the Senju elders, Tatoushima and Matsuko, act like they were born for this. They have it so well in hand that he feels like they don’t need him, and it’s not until almost an hour in that Itama gets up the confidence to say anything.

“Um, excuse me,” he says apologetically to one of the Nara elders. “The treaty draft doesn’t actually say we share military forces. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider it, but if we want that to happen we’ll need to write something specifically for it. Right now it specifies mutual defense, but not shared forces.” He sits back, heart pounding, but no-one seems to think it’s unusual. They ask a few more clarifying questions, and he points out the section on mutual defense, but it’s not an issue. He’s just another delegate.

He can contribute here. He knows what he’s talking about. He—

“What is that?” says Tobirama, interrupting Madara in the middle of a sentence about sharing special techniques. He sounds disturbed, and has turned in his seat to look behind him. His head is swiveling around like he’s trying to follow a fly. Itama turns so quickly that he nearly tips his cart… and for a moment, there’s nothing there. Then, one red, slit-pupiled eye begins to fade into view as if being revealed by ebbing mist. It’s larger than Itama is, and surrounded by a long red-furred face…

A fox lies curled around the pavilion with a mass of bushy tails fanning out near its muzzle—which is _very_ full of sharp teeth. Along with the fox comes a heavy feeling Itama recognizes as powerful chakra.

Someone stands up on the other side of the table, and quickly everyone else follows suit. They’re all starting to yell, so that Itama can’t understand more than fragments of what anyone’s saying.

The fox’s huge eye, about two meters away, blinks. Itama feels like it’s looking at him. It’s some kind of spirit, right? Like the god of death who is an enormous cat? Is it here to kill them all?

Or is it just a very, very large fox that can turn invisible and just _happened_ to be at this alliance summit?

Itama closes his eyes and casts his mind. Practicing with Takema has been helping his range, but even without getting anywhere near it the fox’s chakra is impossible to miss. Inside, even its mind is big, so much more full of memories and trees (?) than a human’s, and obviously more complex than a hawk’s. He won’t be able to suggest it just leave, but maybe he can talk to it?

Suddenly the fox’s thoughts turn sharp and angry, and he opens his eyes again, shocked out of his trance. As he does, he sees that everything has already gone mad. The fox is standing up now, snarling, its fur on end, snapping at a giant-sized version of the Akimichi clan head. All the Uchiha are spitting fireballs at it, and thick treeroots erupt from the ground, trying to grab its feet. It’s all so _stupid_ and _unnecessary_ because if it wanted to hurt them it could have done while it was invisible.

“STOP IT!” Itama shouts, but he can barely hear himself. Certainly no-one else hears him.

He wheels himself forward desperately, hears Tobirama shout his name, but it only makes him go faster. The fox is _holding back_. They should not be fighting something like that. “PLEASE WAIT!” he yells up at Lady Chouhi. But she can’t hear him. He narrowly dodges her enormous foot, but the next second he’s bowled over when the fox bats her to the ground, half-crushing the pavilion. He’s on the ground, dazed and wondering where his cart is, for just a moment—

And then, somehow, he is upside down and very high up in the air. He can see Hashirama’s small horrified face; ant-sized Madara has never looked less frightening; Hikaku seems to be shouting. Everyone who was trying to kill the fox a moment ago has paused, because… Itama is hanging from its mouth. He feels strangely calm. If nothing else, if he’s about to die, it’s the perfect time to try to talk. There is nothing he can lose any more besides his life.

Slipping into the fox’s mind is almost too easy. Like a whirlpool of chakra, it seems to pull him in. He doesn’t even have time for words, just to project what he feels: fear, a wish to protect both the summit and the fox, the desperate hope for peace. Don’t kill me, he says, when he notices he’s still not being eaten.

What are you, says the fox. It’s clearly not a question. You don’t feel the pain of your own body, only the pain of strife? Itama gets the feeling of laughter. You’d have me think you can’t support the continued existence of any conflict, any malice? Convenient. Yet you walk in my heart without my say-so.

It was kind of that or be eaten. And I… this is a summit for a peace treaty. If we all went to war against you, that’s not in the spirit of the summit. And I don’t think… you didn’t come to hurt us.

Hmph. A point, if a weak one. I tire of their pathetic attempts to subdue me, almost as fast as I tire of not destroying them.

Please, please don’t destroy them.

Why not?

I… don’t know if my reason is one you’d accept. I just don’t want them to die. I want to see what our clans will be if they unite. I want an end to war and I… (I _don’t want this to be my fault_ )

Amusing. (can’t be bothered with this place humans are such a disappointment) Now get out of my heart.

Itama comes back to his body, which is hot all over. When he opens his eyes he’s looking down past the fox’s chin at the ground. The pavilion is nowhere to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not going to write a scene of this but please imagine Orochimaru being told what happened to Itama at the summit. How many people did she vow to kill for negligence before Tobirama talked her down. DID HE? Was he like “yeah that’s fair” and HASHIRAMA had to talk her down?? This is funny because technically Orochimaru and Hashirama are the only two members of the “I have killed to protect Itama and I would do it again” club.
> 
> Anyway here’s Tobirama and Orochimaru’s conversation from earlier in the chapter. I like Orochimaru POV. Maybe I should write a fic that is actually from Orochimaru's POV??
> 
> vvvvvv
> 
> “You’ve been hiding.”
> 
> Orochimaru peers down from her branch to give him a sardonic look. “Oh, you figured it out. Well done.”
> 
> “Why?”
> 
> “I’ve found that I don’t much care for any of you, and I’d rather be left alone. Goodbye.”
> 
> “You’re exiling yourself?” Tobirama’s voice betrays a hint of interest. “You’ve decided that you no longer want to accept food and shelter from the Senju? It only makes sense, I suppose, if you’re not going to contribute to the well-being of the clan. You’ll be missed, though.”
> 
> Honestly, she hadn’t considered it, but she’s considering it now. She _could_ survive on her own; she knows enough about hunting, and now that it’s spring she’ll have eight months or more to learn how to build her own shelter. She might even be able to convince Hashirama to help her—  
>   
>  Hmm, no. She really likes having an actual bed to sleep on, in an actual house, with an actual hearth. Even if she will, eventually, have to see Itama in that house. And yet he represents everything she hates about this clan that cannot replace hers but is trying so hard. Her aunt told her once, “You do what it takes to survive. But when you have the choice, choose freedom.”
> 
> Can she think of any way to be free while staying here?
> 
> “Did you fall asleep?” asks Tobirama. Her thoughts scatter, and she loses them.
> 
> “I’m considering your question so I can answer it truthfully,” she snaps, “like a polite conversational participant.”
> 
> “What do you gain if you leave?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious.
> 
> What she gains is that she will be able to predict her own responses more accurately. Her mind will no longer be at war over _take advantage—no, protect_. She will be pure again.
> 
> When she says nothing, trying to come up with an answer that isn’t _that_ , he continues, “You have access to secret techniques and excellent medical care. At our say-so the whole clan will defend you if need be.”
> 
> “Maybe I’m tired of your awful personality,” she hisses down at him. “You seem quite desperate to keep me. Did your brother send you? Too cowardly to face me himself?”
> 
> “I believe he thought you wouldn’t be rational if he was the one to talk to you.” Fury boils up in her gut, because he has no right to be right about that. Just the _thought_ of Senju Itama makes her irrational. “I offered to find out what was wrong, and if there was any way I could help you. I’d rather not have to find another partner for sparring and inventing new techniques. I’m not sure any of the Senju are as clever as you.”
> 
> She’s being soothed, and she hates it, but irritating as it is it’s _working_. “Obviously,” she says, affecting boredom. “I find you fairly useful as well. But I’ve had enough of your brother.”
> 
> Tobirama sighs. “You won’t be able to avoid him forever. You do live in the same house, and it’s not like I can make anyone else take you in. Frankly you don’t know very many people here, and I’m not sure you have other options.”
> 
> When you have the choice, says her aunt in her head, choose freedom. She ignores it, because she really is free to leave any time she wants. The guards wouldn’t stop her.
> 
> She can also be free from Itama, if she wishes. She’s a very good actor, and she’s sure she can make him hate and fear her. Tobirama will hate her too, of course, but he’s not indispensable. As long as Hashirama—too much of an idiot to ever like—pities her, she’ll have a roof over her head. Still, he’s not exactly satisfying to manipulate. He practically does it himself.
> 
> “You’re right, Tobirama,” she says. “Now go away.”
> 
> “Are you intending to show up for dinner?” he asks drily.
> 
> She doesn’t answer.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this one some foxes use rude words about Itama’s disabilities, presumed and actual.

So the fox is a god. A real one.

It put Itama down in a hollow tree (and made a comment about how convenient it is he can’t go anywhere, which was _rude_ ) and then when it vanished a bunch of smaller foxes (servants? children? still bigger than any fox Itama has ever seen) came to stare at him.

A god appeared at the treaty summit and kidnapped Itama when he tried to talk it down. When he puts it that way, it sounds like a particularly obvious metaphor for his anxiety about the summit. He keeps waiting to wake up.

“Who are you?” whispers one of the foxes.

Itama stares at it. He _feels_ like he’s dreaming.

“Do you think he’s mute?” asks another. “What does Kyuubi-sama want with a mute cripple?”

“Shut up,” says Itama.

All the foxes jump back a few centimeters. “He can talk! He can talk!”

“He’s rude.”

“ _You’re_ being rude,” says Itama, frowning at them. “Just because someone can’t talk doesn’t mean they can’t hear you saying mean things about them.” The fox spirits giggle and swish their tails. “Where are we?”

“In Kyuubi-sama’s sacred glade!”

“No, uh, I could kind of tell that.” It’s the aura of power, of protection. “It’s, um, very nice. But where _is_ it?”

“Right here,” says one of the fox spirits, and laughs again like it thinks he’s stupid. He gives up. Foxes probably don’t even know what Fire Country is.

He was just going to sit and brood on what his brothers are doing, since he doesn’t much like the fox spirits, but they don’t want to leave him alone. They keep asking question after question in their whispery piping voices until he yells “JUST GO AWAY! I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED AND I DON’T FEEL LIKE IT!”

They scatter like thistledown, and finally it’s quiet.

He slumps against the inside of the tree, too tired for sitting up straight, and gradually realizes that he’s sore all over and kind of light-headed. When he looks down at himself, his haori is covered in godly spit and his hakama is soaked with blood from when Kyuubi-sama tried to eat him. He’s glad he can’t really see anything under it, because even thinking about how much his legs are bleeding is making him a little faint. He should be glad he can’t feel them, but it’s horrifying to imagine how messed up they can get without him ever feeling it. Someone could _cut them off_ and he’d bleed out and never notice unless he looked.

How is he going to heal them? Does it even matter if he doesn’t? How bad is the blood loss actually?

He decides to start on the injuries he can actually feel.

He’s most of the way through fixing the bite bruises on his chest when Kyuubi-sama’s legs, then its face, appear in front of the opening in the tree. He starts. It’s eerily silent, as if it doesn’t actually weigh anything.

 **I’ve been remiss as a host,** it says in a voice that seems to vibrate in Itama’s bones. **My servants are chronically nosy. Don’t worry, they’ve been chastised.** It settles onto the ground in a careless sprawl.

“Um, thank you. Kyuubi-sama. But we’d both probably be happier if I was somewhere else. No offense? I don’t understand why I’m here.”

Kyuubi-sama’s mass of tails rises and thwaps against the ground; its long ears swivel back like it’s listening to something behind it. **You’re here because you’re the only human who stopped to wonder why a god might attend your little conference. In the jaws of death, you thought to talk.**

That’s maybe more because he’s useless at fighting than anything else. Words are really the only weapon he has.

“That’s very… k… kind of you to say? But you didn’t have to…” _Kidnap_ seems like the wrong word to use for a god taller than the tallest trees, with chakra like the sun. He decides to try a different argument. “You don’t seem to like humans very much.”

 **I hope you’re not _complaining_ that I decided not to eat you. Because I can easily change my mind.** It lifts its lip to bare a lot of very long, very sharp teeth. **You’re a research project. Why don’t you tell me about your conference? I’m sure I’ll find it illuminating.**

Itama swallows. He could swear he’s tasting blood. “R-right. The conference is… something I came up with.” It’s _technically_ true, though he would never say it to a human. He has a feeling that giving himself more bargaining power could be useful. He repeats to himself Tobirama’s words: _I want you to know how powerful you are_. “That is, it took me a while to come up with it. At first I just wanted to ally with the Yamanaka so I could learn their secret technique.” Kyuubi-sama curls its lip again and makes a noise that he can only describe as a _quiet snarl_ because of how loud it is when it speaks. It doesn’t like that, probably because it thinks humans are all treacherous or something. “Not, um, in a self-serving way,” he assures it. “The technique is the one I used to talk to you. It can connect people’s minds. You can understand people a lot better that way.”

This seems to have gone over okay; Kyuubi-sama isn’t snarling any more, but Itama isn’t sure what the narrowed eyes and slow blinking means. “It made it possible for me to trust the Uchiha as allies,” he offers. “Even though we’ve been at war with them for generations. It sort of makes you understand that everyone is a person. Even birds.” He flushes. He’s rambling and he sounds like an idiot. “Basically I wanted my clan to be able to use it to trust each other and keep track of each other and things like that.”

**You’ve heard of the Sage of Six Paths?**

Itama blinks up at the fox. “Um… there’s a story where he created the world or something? Maybe he created chakra?”

Kyuubi-sama snorts. **No-one _created_ chakra. But living things didn’t have it until he gave it to you. And what did you do with it? Immediately started killing. Destroying the trees and the earth they grow in. Humans don’t understand the first thing about how chakra flows through the world. You hoard it and set it on fire. Ninjutsu is blighted ground that grows nothing but MALICE. ** By the end of the sentence it’s roaring, and Itama has to clamp his hands over his ears while the very ground shakes.

When he dares to open his eyes Kyuubi-sama’s tails are thumping against the ground. If it’s anything like a cat, it’s probably really worked up right now, ready to snap its fangs. The safest thing is to agree—and Itama kind of does anyway. So he says, “I’ve always thought so too, Kyuubi-sama. Except medical ninjutsu. That can’t be used to hurt people.”

 **You’re not very creative, are you, boy?** Kyuubi-sama makes a sound that could be a laugh. **Humans can and will use _anything_ to hurt each other. Your secret technique, for example. Go on and tell me what the Yamanaka used it for.**

“Scouting and getting information, mostly. Lady Inoiro did sort of say some of them do want to use it for war.”

**That technique is one of the closest things still in this world to Ninshuu, the Sage’s teachings. Humans haven’t found a way to use it directly to destroy anything, so you use it to aid destruction instead.**

“What’s Ninshuu?” asks Itama, wanting to get off the topic of how horrible humans are. It’s not that he disagrees so much, but he is a human and he’d rather not get eaten after all.

 **It’s exactly what it sounds like. What are you, stupid? The spiritual practice of shinobi.** Its lip curls again. **Which, by the way, does not mean _warriors_. It means people who use chakra.**

“Are you a shinobi, then?”

It snorts. **No-one has ever dared to call me that. But the Sage’s other sons were shinobi. Why shouldn’t we be?**

Itama’s eyes widen, and he looks at its face again to see if it’s maybe joking. It squints its eyes shut again. Maybe it’s very good at messing with humans. Or—“The Sage was your father? Who’s _we_?”

 **Curious little thing, aren’t you? Planning to run back home as soon as you can and write it all down?** Itama flushes, because, well, yes. He was planning on writing down everything he could so everyone would know about fox gods who sometimes eat people. **Your conference, then, was a way for you to teach yourself Ninshuu.**

“I suppose. Y-yes. Lady Inoiro wanted me to do it so, so I could show everyone what it’s like.” He looks down and chews his bottom lip, thinking. If Kyuubi-sama likes Ninshuu, and it’s a religion its father came up with, maybe it will be more charitable—or maybe he can find out something—if he speaks to its heart again. “Can I do it again, now that you’re not, um, going to eat me?”

Kyuubi-sama squints its eyes shut, and lowers its long snout right into the hollow of the tree, so it’s almost resting in Itama’s lap. Because he feels it’s what he’s supposed to do, he puts his hand on its nose. And cast—catch—he’s sitting in a clearing in the forest.

It’s a _different_ clearing, he realizes, not Kyuubi-sama’s sacred glade. He looks around uncertainly, and finds Kyuubi-sama sitting in almost exactly the same position. Its tails are flicking. “Um, I’m not sure what’s the point of this if we can’t hear each other’s thoughts,” he says. “You just made it like the real world. How did you do that?”

“If I couldn’t control the inside of my own heart, I’d be a poor excuse for a god,” says Kyuubi-sama. Itama is startled by how normal its voice sounds. A little bit like Mako, actually.

“But aren’t you just using it to hide your heart?”

Kyuubi-sama smiles, which is not a thing a fox should really be able to do. “It’s already worked. You’re not hiding yours any more. You’re a bit of a brat.” Itama snaps shut his mouth, embarrassed and angry. He’s the one who suggested this, how has he already been tricked? “Did you really think you were going to get one over on a god? I’ve been alive since before the moon was in the sky. I rather like people like you.” Kyuubi-sama stretches its strangely hand-like paws, gouging furrows in the dirt. “Idiots, that is.”

Itama takes a deep breath and does not yell. “I don’t like people like you. People who abuse their power to make other people afraid.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“You threatened to eat me!”

“Jokes like that don’t land so well with humans,” it says, with the air of someone conceding a minor point.

“I also don’t like people who take me away from my family,” Itama mutters. “Why don’t you take me back?”

“My objective isn’t to be _liked_ by humans. It’s to find out what they’re doing. Six villages full of humans coming together is bad news.”

“It’s _good_ news. We’re going to have a lot more farmland and no-one will have to fight.”

“Imagine how much better it might go if you understood Ninshuu properly instead of making it up as you went along.”

“Hmph. So what you want is to make sure us humans do things the way you want.”

“Precisely. You’re quick to catch on. And this way of communicating does seem very useful. I think it’s served its purpose.”

Itama feels as if he’s been pushed backward, and flails to get his balance back—his mind back in his body. He slumps backward against the inner wall of the tree and lets his head fall back, unable to concentrate on much other than the familiar sensation of blood trickling down his chin.

**Ah. An imperfect technique. I’ll send someone to clean you up. Rest.**

Itama lies there, dazed, for a little while until two fox spirits show up. He starts to wonder if he’s dreaming again when they change into pale women in weirdly fancy clothing. They kneel down by him and start dabbing his face with wet cloths, and they’re really not that good at pretending to be human, because they don’t understand personal space or _quite_ the way humans are supposed to move.

“Kyuubi-sama likes you,” one of them whispers, and they both giggle.

Itama really doesn’t think that’s true. It’s trying to keep him in good condition so he can go back home and make everyone use Ninshuu. Which is stupid, because he would _anyway_. He’d even come back for lessons if he could just go home.

“ _I_ didn’t hear him talk,” says the fox spirit in pink. “Are you sure he’s not mute?”

“He could talk last time,” says the one in green. “Maybe Kyuubi-sama scared his voice away.”

Itama lets them think what they want, at least until the green one asks, “What do you eat? Humans have to eat, you know.”

“Of course I know,” he mutters. “Mostly rice. Meat. Vegetables.”

“We’ll go hunting!” says the pink one delightedly.

“A barbecue,” agrees the green one. “I’ll get Yarera to start digging.” Then they both get up and run off, laughing and stumbling over their robes until they both fall to the ground and turn back into foxes.

Itama isn’t ever allowed to languish for long, even after Kyuubi-sama told off the foxes. They keep coming by to ask him questions and sniff him, and eventually he gives in and decides to entertain them, because he can at least keep them quiet by insisting they listen to him. The fox spirits aren’t like the Yamanaka kids he was telling stories to—they don’t complain that it’s not cool enough or there’s not enough ninjutsu or it wouldn’t happen like that. They seem to be very easy to please, so much that he feels there’s not much point in telling a good story.

Still, he tries his best. He tells a story about a princess who wanted to save her little sister from a terrible illness, so she set out on a quest to learn everything about medicine. When he pauses before the princess gets home, the fox spirits start clamoring to know if her sister is still alive. He can’t help grinning, because he really has got them invested in it.

“The guards were astonished to see her. But she couldn’t tell if they were hiding sadness or relief. She didn’t want to ask, so she went on.”

“But her sister!” yips one of the foxes.

“Be patient!” Itama tells it. “She walked through the kitchen, because she was very hungry—”

“She should go and see Yuri!”

“—but she couldn’t bear to ask the cooks because she was so afraid. The food sat like a stone in her belly. Finally when she made it to her sister’s room she found her mother kneeling inside, wearing all white next to Yuri’s bed. Her sister was dead.”

The foxes all start screaming and rolling around on their backs. The noise is so awful Itama has to plug his ears until the foxes, their own ears drooping, finally realize he hasn’t finished the story yet. In a quiet voice he says, “But don’t you remember the medicine the witch gave her?”

“That medicine doesn’t bring people back to life,” one of the fox spirits sniffles. “It makes you go to the underworld.”

“Yuri’s spirit would never go to the underworld! She’d go to the Pure Land!” says another.

“It’s a magical illness, a curse from a hell-hag! So she knew her sister would be in the underworld. Princess Tsuchiko told her mother, ‘I’m going to get her back.’ And she took the pill and fell down dead at her mother’s feet!” Another great howl goes up from the listening spirits. Before it can die down Kyuubi-sama’s long snout appears around the edge of Itama’s tree.

**What on this sweet green earth are you doing to them? They’ve been howling all afternoon.**

“Oh! I’m sorry, Kyuubi-sama. I was telling them a story.”

“Pleeeeease don’t make him stop. Pleeeeeease, Kyuubi-sama!”

Kyuubi-sama shifts like it’s getting comfortable, lays its head down on its outstretched paws/hands, and then fixes one huge red eye on Itama. **Go on, then.**

Itama blinks in surprise, and then clears his throat. “Um, yes, well, so Princess Tsuchiko took the pill. Her spirit separated from her body, and she fell down through the ground into the underworld. But she didn’t know where her sister was, because the underworld was _huge_. She walked until she met a devil and then grabbed him by his horns so he couldn’t hurt her. And she told him to tell her where her sister was, or she’d kill him. Devils are cowards,” (he hopes the foxes don’t know any _actual_ devils) “so he said, ‘Don’t hurt me! The Queen took a human girl just yesterday, she must be in the palace!’

“Tsuchiko made the devil take her to the palace. There were way too many guards, so she had to sneak in, but she had the training from the ninja she had met, so she made it into the Queen’s private rooms. She was a very bold princess, so she challenged the Queen of the Underworld: ‘I challenge you to a game! If I win, you give my sister back and let us go home. If you win, you can keep me here!’”

Kyuubi-sama snorts and squints its eye shut. Itama thinks it might be amused. It makes him feel a little uneasy, but he continues. “The Queen of the Underworld loved games, so she agreed. She didn’t think a human child could ever beat her in any kind of game. And secretly, Tsuchiko wasn’t sure she could beat the Queen either, so she cheated.”

This sends the fox spirits into an uproar. Among the yipping and growling, Itama can make out fragments of sentences—the foxes are angry that a princess would cheat in a game. It’s not the typical heroic thing to do, because she’s not even tricking the Queen within the rules. And heroes always have to follow the rules until someone else breaks them first.

 **Quiet,** thunders Kyuubi-sama. Silence falls almost immediately, and it says, **You’re giving me a headache. Don’t you already know that humans are cheaters?**

“The Queen of the Underworld cheated first!” says Itama. “She had no right to steal Tsuchiko’s sister. Tsuchiko had to do whatever she could to get Yuri-chan back. So she beat the Queen, and—”

“What game were they playing?”

“Um, shougi. Tsuchiko brought extra pieces, and the Queen was so angry she didn’t count them. She stood up and kicked the table over and yelled that Tsuchiko couldn’t understand what it was like to be lonely and not be able to have a child, and that she couldn’t have won fairly. Tsuchiko realized the real reason the Queen made her sister get sick was that she wanted a child. And Tsuchiko was very smart, so she said, ‘If my sister is a dead spirit, she’ll never grow up, and she’ll be this small forever. You won’t understand what it’s like to raise a child. But I can cure you. I’ve studied every kind of medicine.’ So she got the devils to search far and wide for all the herbs she needed, and she pounded them and mixed them for a day and a night, and when she was finally done she had made three pills.

“‘Take one of these when you want to have a child,’ she told the Queen. The Queen thanked her and let her take her sister back, and they walked together until they found the stairs up out of the underworld and got back to their bodies and laid down in them. Then they jumped up. They were both alive!” The foxes cheer and start tackling each other. “AND THEN,” he yells over the clamor. “AND THEN, nine months later, Tsuchiko got an invitation. It was for a party the Queen of the Underworld was throwing to celebrate the birth of her first child. And in Princess Tsuchiko’s kingdom, everyone lived long, long lives, and they didn’t die until they were good and ready.”

Several of the fox spirits flop down onto the moss and start rolling around with their tongues lolling out. “That was a good story,” one of the ones still sitting tells Itama. “Humans might be cheaters but they’re not all bad.”

 **Indeed,** says Kyuubi-sama, eyeing Itama. **One would almost think he told it that way on purpose. Any favors you want to do for me, boy?**

Itama flushes. He really was just trying to tell a good story with a likable hero. “If you want to let me go, I won’t even ask you to give back my sister.”

Kyuubi-sama just laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a dream the morning I wrote this that I had a five-year-old sister named Lily. I told her, “The world is SO complicated.” She replied, as if to comfort me, “We will turn the world to dust.” And then I woke up. Anyway I named the little princess in Itama’s story after her. It is PURE COINCIDENCE that her name is so similar to Orochimaru’s favorite snake summon (Lilyroot/Yurine). It is absolutely not coincidence that the elder princess’ name is a contraction of tsuchinoko, the snake youkai, although I’m sure Itama thinks it is.


	14. Chapter 14

**The first is chakra transfer, which you know already. It can be used for many things besides connecting one heart to another. Chakra is energy, so it can be used to restore life. There is a dying magnolia tree some distance from here.**

Itama barely has time to wonder why Kyuubi-sama let one of its trees die before there’s hot breath on the back of his neck—he panics—and he’s being lifted into the air by the collar of his haori. Kyuubi-sama unfolds its legs and rises, and Itama finds himself near the level of the treetops. It reminds him of flying, a little, except that he’s just dangling and he feels like he’s about to fall any moment.

Kyuubi-sama sets him down by a tree with just a few sad leaves, and says, **Use your sensing ability to find out what’s wrong with it, and fix it. Then the next lesson.** And it vanishes into air. Not all at once, but like a mist.

Kyuubi-sama is the worst teacher Itama has ever had and they’re not even one day into lessons, if you can call what just happened a lesson. He lets out a sigh, trying to imagine letting off heat to cool the boiling frustration in his belly, and scoots over to put a hand on the trunk of the tree. He can’t even sense any chakra, but it’s probably just fainter than human chakra, so he has to keep trying.

After probably half an hour of squinting into the tree with his eyes closed, Itama has a headache. He lets himself fall onto his side, curling around the trunk, and opens his eyes to watch the forest. From ground level, the little stems of grass and wildflowers are their own little forest, smelling of dirt and sap and the old wet leaves from autumn. The other plants around the tree are fine, so it’s not like the dirt is bad. Maybe it’s just bad for trees?

He sighs again and closes his eyes, runs his hand through his hair coated with medical chakra to soothe away his headache. Maybe if he naps the answer will come to him in a dream or something.

And it does. Sort of.

He slips until he’s only half-awake, with his eyes barely open, and he feels sort of like he’s rocking side to side in a hammock, or tumbling end over end underwater. It’s a weird feeling he sometimes has when he’s trying to sleep. But it sort of feels like he’s being pulled by some swirling current. In his mind’s eye it’s as green as new leaves and as slow as the moon’s pull on the tides. An ocean of forest.

Once he wakes fully he understands what he was doing wrong. It’s like watching clouds: you’ll never see them move if you keep looking everywhere to see what shape they are. He tries to unfocus his eyes, except he’s not using his _eyes_ , so unfocus his mind? He tries to feel the flow of chakra in the magnolia tree. It takes a long time to get how it’s different, but finally he realizes that the other trees have chakra flowing up and down them, and even underground between them—but the magnolia’s chakra is barely moving, and most of it is swirling slowly around the base. He decides to experiment: what if he slows down his own chakra and shares it with the tree? The answer, it turns out, is that the tree will suddenly grow strange white leaves that droop when he stops touching it.

He tries adding chakra in different places, and even digs a little way into the ground to try with the roots, but it doesn’t help the tree. It _has_ enough chakra, it just isn’t using it very well. It’s like the tree is stupid.

He closes his eyes again to try and sense the larger patterns of chakra flow. After watching for a while, he’s pretty sure that chakra is flowing around the tree instead of in and out of it. A rejected tree. A tree that’s stuck inside doing calligraphy instead of anything helpful.

So Itama starts trying to coax chakra through the ground and toward the tree. He tries just pulling it. He tries digging channels or wetting the ground with his own chakra. He tries yelling at it for a few minutes, although he’s not surprised that one doesn’t work. He tries sullenly sitting with his back against the rejected magnolia until the sun sets and he starts to see the distant light of foxfire in the sacred glade. Is he going to have to sleep here?

It sounds like the fox spirits are having a party. Maybe they’ll barbecue something and then remember Itama likes barbecue. The sound of drums and shamisen comes to him, muffled by the trees; the forest’s chakra grows suddenly and condenses like mist into Kyuubi-sama.

**I see you haven’t fixed it.**

“The problem is really complicated,” says Itama crossly. “It’s not sharing chakra with the other trees, and I don’t know how to get it to. It’s like they don’t know it’s there. The grass isn’t helping.”

 **Not bad. It seems you’ve realized you don’t have the ability to save this tree. I do, however.** It walks over the tree, with the tips of its bare branches barely brushing Kyuubi-sama’s belly, and starts… picking up small stones.

“What are you doing?” asks Itama as it moves a stone about five centimeters to the west.

**The second is redirecting the flow of natural energy. Like so.**

“I didn’t even get a chance to try the first one!”

Kyuubi-sama’s eye appears in the gap between its front legs. **Oh no?** it says, and plucks a single wilted white leaf off the magnolia. **I know a leaf grown from yin-yang chakra when I see it. You have in fact mastered chakra transfer, but your chakra happens to be useless to trees. Now watch the flow, runt. You will be doing the same tomorrow, so you may as well study my technique.**

But Itama doesn’t have enough time to slow down his thoughts and figure out how chakra is flowing now, because Kyuubi-sama picks him up again and carries him back to the sacred glade. Itama sulks. It’s ripping through his haori and ruining it even more than it already was, and it’s deliberately making its lessons harder by—by— _lying_ , and not giving him enough time!

He finds it somewhat harder to sulk once they get back to the sacred glade and there’s a large amount of roast boar set aside for him, along with a gourd full of the delicate floral fruit wine the fox spirits favor. He gets maybe a little drunk and tells them a very stupid story that Hashirama once made up for him when he was sick, and starts learning to play their old shamisen. The foxes are probably laughing at him, but it’s better than thinking about home.

 

The next day Kyuubi-sama isn’t even there. Itama waits until some time after noon before he asks one of the fox spirits where it is. “Oh, punishing the wicked, I expect,” says the fox, and giggles.

“That doesn’t seem very Ninshuu,” Itama mutters. “Anyway, Kyuubi-sama told me to practice redirecting chakra today, but the place I wanted to study is kind of far away. Would you mind taking me there?”

“Not at all!” says the fox. In fact, it sounds delighted. “I’ll lie down, and you can sit on my back. What fun!”

Foxes have a strange sense of fun, Itama thinks as he carefully positions himself sideways on its back. It stands up, and he has to cling to its neck to avoid falling off. Then it starts walking, strangely fluid, more liquid than creature.

“It’s the magnolia tree about half a kilometer north of here. The dying one?” He’s not sure if the fox knows what a kilometer is, but it nods its head and goes a little faster, so at least it has somewhere in mind. After a bit he gets uneasy about riding on its back without knowing and blurts out, “What’s your name?”

“Tsusa!”

“I’m Senju Itama.”

“Oh! I didn’t know humans had names too. Senjuidama! Long but good. What’s Senjui?”

“Um, just Itama is fine. The rest of the Senju clan isn’t here anyway.”

“Itama, then! You know, I think you’re all right, but some of the others say you’re a right mess. With your clothes all full of holes and crusted in blood. Is it his fault he’s a born warrior? I say. Some people are born to be covered in blood, even if they can’t walk! You’ve got to let them be!”

“Um, that’s very nice of you, but I don’t actually like the blood.” It kind of crunches when he moves his legs somewhere, and although he can’t feel the way it makes his hakama stiff he can still hear it and that’s bad enough. “I just don’t have any other clothes, and I don’t want to wash these in the stream we drink out of.”

“Oh! We’ll throw them away, then, and make you a better set. Have you got anything we could trade to the cranes?”

“My calligraphy’s all right, I suppose. Or I could tell stories.”

“You should play shamisen for them!” Tsusa yips, and then starts doing something Itama can only describe as howling with laughter. That settles it. They _were_ making fun of him.

He only feels bemused, though, as he slides to the ground next to the magnolia. “Thanks for taking me here. I don’t want to make you wait, but if you could come check on me every couple of hours it would be nice.”

“I’ll wait,” says Tsusa, curling up into a startlingly round ball, like an orange moon on the edge of rising. “I can even be quiet. I know it’s important, I just want to see how you do it.”

Tsusa’s slitted golden eyes make Itama a little nervous as they follow him, but he does his best to ignore them. He sits with his back to the tree and closes his eyes, looking for the current that used to swirl around the magnolia tree. He shouldn’t be surprised at what it is now, given that a god repaired it, but he is anyway: chakra is now flowing in and out of the magnolia just like the other trees. The magnolia still looks just as dead as it did yesterday, though.

Trees can’t _use_ human chakra, but maybe now that it has enough of its own he can change what it does, like with healing? Can he use his chakra to direct the tree’s?

He sort of pushes it around to make chakra flow to the tips of the branches—it’s difficult and delicate and it takes a long time to figure it out, but when he opens his eyes green buds are starting to appear.

On his right, Tsusa yawns theatrically. “So are you done? That’s a pretty neat trick, but wouldn’t it be easier moving around natural energy directly?”

“You can _do_ that?” Itama sits up straight and turns a wide-eyed stare on Tsusa, who looks satisfied with the attention.

“Oh, yes. I’ve heard it turns humans to stone, though, so maybe you shouldn’t try. Or if you do, make sure to strike a good pose! We could use a meditating human statue, it would be very elegant.” And it starts laughing again.

“Very funny,” he says crossly. “Why did you even mention it, then?”

“Well, the Sage could do it. I’m not sure if he counts as human, but really, what is a human?”

“Take me back to the glade, and maybe I’ll tell you a story about it.”

 

The cranes don’t think Itama’s shamisen playing is as entertaining as the foxes do, but they do appreciate his calligraphy. It’s quite hard for cranes to hold brushes, and they haven’t learned to take human form as the foxes have. He spends a day in the nearest marsh being measured and having beaks clicked at him, and then the cranes shoo away him and Tsusa and the other foxes who wanted to come. They do get invited to a party, which is way more genteel than the kind foxes _or_ humans have. It’s how Itama imagines parties in the Daimyou’s court must be, with really good music but only performers getting to dance, and everyone else has to sit politely and watch. When Itama could still walk, he loved dancing the most. He would take Hashirama or Kawarama or one of his friends into the middle of the square and dance until they were completely out of breath and had to yell for Tobirama to get them water. This kind of party is very solemn in contrast, and it doesn’t seem like any fun to Itama. He spends most of it trying to come up with ways to dance in his cart, assuming he ever sees it again. Could the foxes make him a new one? They don’t really seem like woodworkers. He’s quite sure their instruments come from someone else.

When they go home Itama can’t stop thinking about dancing, how much he misses it. At least he can watch the foxes dance and complain about how grave the cranes’ parties are. It’s more fun than listening to slow songs on a stringed instrument he doesn’t know the name of. To cheer him up, a silver-furred fox named Chuyo starts trying to teach him things fox spirits can do, like fly on wheels of fire and become invisible. He doesn’t think they’re things humans can actually learn, but it’s really nice of Chuyo to try and teach him.

Kyuubi-sama comes back several weeks later, by which time the magnolia is blooming. Itama has been visiting it every day to make sure whatever problem it has doesn’t come back, as well as trying to figure out how moving five rocks into slightly different places fixed it. When Itama slightly moves rocks, it doesn’t change the flow of natural energy at all.

 **Well, runt?** says Kyuubi-sama. **Have you finished your second lesson?** It flops onto the ground—still with no noise, not seeming to shake the earth at all—and its tails sweep the moss of the glade.

“No. When I move rocks around it doesn’t do anything. What did you do to the rocks?”

**You didn’t even figure that out? I suppose I’ll have to show you. Shisura! Bring a brush. We’ll be here for a while.**

 

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that while the world still enjoyed the protection of the bijuu, more intelligent animals lived in the normal world rather than the magic animal continent or whatever they call that place. Itama is choosing to view being kidnapped by a god as a sort of study away thing, like that time Jiraiya accidentally got stuck on Mount Myouboku for a year and started learning to become a sage (also at the tender age of around twelve!). For Itama, the alternative is, well, accepting that he’s been kidnapped and desperately misses his family.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh did I forget to update last week. MY BAD I have a lot going on on mondays. in apology have exactly what I was going to give you anyway, which is Itama having a very bad time talking to some humans and Kurama being an unexpectedly nice dad, kind of?? UGH ITAMA IS SUCH A TEEN BUT ONLY WHEN HE'S WITH KURAMA AND IT'S REALLY CUTE

He does, _eventually_ , figure out the trick to redirecting natural energy in the ground. And it’s increased his sensing range a lot, without him noticing. Unfortunately, the only thing it really seems to be good for is gardening. Five weeks into his stay with the foxes he’s riding around the sacred glade in a new silk haori and kimono checking up on all the plants. All of his new clothes are black and white to match his hair, the cranes said, in patterns of black snowy pine trees. They’re very beautiful, but a little severe, and he really stands out in the forest. Standing out isn’t too much of a problem, normally, because he has the protection of a god (and he’s going to learn to make barriers from natural energy soon!). But he can’t bear to stay in the sacred glade forever.

It’s not hard to convince Tsusa to take him exploring the forest while Kyuubi-sama is away ‘punishing the wicked,’ and there are always four or five other foxes who want to come. With a small pack of fox spirits nothing in the forest will bother him, and Chuyo has told him that he’s starting to smell a bit like a fox himself. That makes him uneasy but—he’s not going to let anything ruin his mood today. Today wind is blowing through the treetops, and the sky is clear and sunny and it’s really starting to get warm. They dash past the marsh where the weaver-cranes live and on toward the coast, because Shisura heard he’d never seen it and wanted to show him. The forest gives way to low hills covered in grass and wildflowers, and none of the foxes seem to be able to resist leaping into the sky and having mock battles two meters above the ground. Fire surrounds Tsusa’s feet and it runs up into the air too, and this is a second completely different way that he’s found himself high off the ground being carried by a fox. It’s wonderful, even better than being a hawk! He’s surrounded by laughing foxes and kept safe by the warm back of a friend. It’s a little like if Tobirama could fly but always made fun of him—well, maybe it’s more like if Orochimaru could fly?

He doesn’t have too much time to get sad, because a port town comes into view and there are _humans_ there. Humans with brown skin and filthy clothing and fat fishing nets sparkling in the sun. No-one ever said he’s not allowed to talk to humans, so he asks Tsusa to take him into town. Maybe he can talk to some of the other kids who work on the boats!

But he decides to play it casual and just have a look at the docks first. Everyone is so busy they don’t even seem to notice him, which is a bit of a marvel after being begged for stories every day for a month. He’s having a hard time restraining his grin as he looks around at everyone working and yelling to each other and throwing bundles of supplies and everything.

Then someone happens to meet his eyes, a bald man whose eyes are permanently squinted shut from the wind and sun on the water. The man’s eyes widen, his mouth falls open, and he elbows the man next to him. “Here, Yosuke, tell me you can see that kid.”

“What kid? Is guilt eating you again ‘cos you never go see yo—oh. That kid. That’s a spirit, idiot. Don’t look at it and it’ll go away. If you don’t talk to spirits they can’t get you.” Yosuke grabs his friend by the shoulder and turns him around so they’re walking the other way.

The grin slides off Itama’s face and he swallows.

“Rude,” spits Tsusa. “I could get them no matter if they talked or not. D’you want me to?”

“Leave them alone,” mutters Itama, putting a hand on its head between its ears. “Maybe they’re right to be scared of spirits.”

Suddenly Tsusa’s ears pull back against its head and it jumps half a meter to the right, growling. A moment later a rock hits the ground where they were standing. Itama looks over to find a group of children a little younger than him picking up more rocks. The tallest says, “Stupid-asses. You can’t exorcise spirits with a normal rock. You got to get a _holy_ rock.”

“That sounds dumb,” says the girl standing next to him, and she throws her rock. Itama doesn’t manage to dodge as well as Tsusa, and it hits him on the arm. He flinches and nearly falls, and has to clutch Tsusa’s neck for balance.

“I’m not a spirit!” he tells them, flushing angrily. “And even if I were you shouldn’t throw rocks at spirits.”

“Yeah, you’ll make them mad and they’ll come suck your blood at night!”

“No! It’s just mean! How’d you like it if I threw rocks at you?”

“Ooh! Spirit’s revenge! Quick, before it gets a rock!”

Tsusa tries to get out of the way, but four kids all throwing rocks means it’s hard. One of them stings Itama’s cheek, and he falls off Tsusa’s back into the dirt. “Help me up, quick,” he pants, but Tsusa is having enough trouble standing in front of him to shield him. It’s getting hurt for his sake—why are humans so cruel?—and he can’t _take_ it any more. He slams his hands onto the ground, and like the other end of a lever a wall of earth springs up in front of Tsusa. He curls up around himself until Tsusa’s wet nose nudges his neck, and he gets himself back up onto its back.

“Take me somewhere with no humans,” he mumbles. Tsusa leaps into the sky and dashes away, as the children scream below. They don’t touch down until several kilometers down the coast. Itama’s not sure where the rest of the foxes are who came with them, but he lets himself fall off Tsusa’s back onto the shoregrass, with his arm over his eyes. Only then does he start crying, because it’s not fair, because they’re wrong, because he’s not sure he really is human any more, because when he was a child he and his friends would have done the same thing.

Tsusa curls up into his side and lays its head over his chest like a heavy blanket. He cries until more foxes gather around him, until he can’t move at all, and then he takes one last shuddering breath and is quiet in the sea breeze.

He dreams the flow of natural energy on the coast, the endless power crashing in with the waves and the delicate give and take of the shoregrasses. A curious gull lands nearby to see what he is. He steps into its mind to fly for a while, so far above the line between human and spirit that he can’t see it any more.

 

Itama is starting to get impatient with the slow pace of his work. At this rate he won’t learn Ninshuu for years and years, and his family is going to think he’s dead. He’s working up his courage to ask Kyuubi-sama if he can go home for a visit. Just as soon as it comes back, he’s going to…

It comes back bleeding red light, hardly able to walk, and everything else flies out of his head. “Chuyo-san, can you take me to Kyuubi-sama?”

Chuyo pulls him up onto its back and runs to the middle of the glade, where he slips off and starts feeling Kyuubi-sama’s chakra for internal wounds.

**Eager to help, are you, runt? I suppose this is a good time to teach you about healing.**

“I already know healing,” Itama snaps. “I’ve been a medic for three years.”

**Not medical ninjutsu, little fool. Healing is different. Unlike ninjutsu, it can’t be used to hurt. I won’t have you muddying my insides with your human chakra.**

“Then how on earth am I supposed to help?”

**Patience first, runt. I’ve survived thousands of years of you humans, and I’ll survive a few hours more. Why don’t you work out for yourself what healing is? Haven’t you been healing trees?**

“Stubborn old man,” mutters Itama, hopefully too quiet for it to hear. But he goes to work changing the flow of chakra: not out through the wounds, but around them, to close them. He has no doubt that Kyuubi-sama could do this by itself, but it’s still… it’s a certain kind of feeling to know that it’s trusting him to do it.

It takes several hours, and a lot of awkward climbing assisted by Chuyo and the other worried foxes, but Itama does manage to stop all the bleeding. He’s not quite sure about Kyuubi-sama’s insides (does it even have organs?) but he doesn’t get a chance to ask, because Kyuubi-sama stands up and stretches, making the trees on the edge of the glade tremble as it swats them with its tails.

 **Not terrible,** it allows. **You could stand to be quicker, though.** Itama scowls up at it, and it laughs. **In that case you’re ready for the next lesson. Hmm. Which should it be?**

“You have all this time and you haven’t even planned past the lesson you’re teaching? For a god, you’re an awful teacher.”

 **I have better things to do, runt. The wicked don’t punish themselves, except in stories.** It looks at Itama with one huge red eye, and seems to smile. **Why don’t I teach you to use natural energy?**

“Tsusa told me that directly moving natural energy turns humans to stone…”

 **Tsusa has never met a competent human before,** says Kyuubi-sama, amused. **None of my servants know what to do with you. But yes, you can use natural energy without harm to yourself, if you’re careful. A mixture of equal parts yin, yang, and natural energy is known as sage chakra because the Sage of Six Paths first used it. And, I suppose, because the great animal sages use it to shield their territory. Petrification results from too large a ratio of natural energy. As long as you never mess up, you don’t have anything to worry about.**

It’s definitely smirking at him now. Probably enjoying the thought of having a statue of him as much as Tsusa did (though he likes to think Tsusa prefers him alive by now). He resolves not to get turned into stone. He’ll be extra careful out of spite.

In all the excitement of starting to learn sage techniques, Itama completely forgets to ask if he can visit home.

When he does remember, two days later, he distracts himself while meditating and feels the imbalance in his chakra long before he realizes his left leg is turning to stone. “Chuyo-san! Chuyo-san, what do I do? I’m going to turn to stone, I’m going to die!” In his panic he grabs one of Chuyo’s tails and it growls at him.

“Calm down, pup! You’re not taking in any more natural energy, so it won’t go any further. You’ve got time to fix it.”

Itama deliberately counts out his breaths like he learned to do when he’s still afraid of being attacked by Uchiha. Gradually he calms down, wipes away the tears in his eyes, and swallows. “There _is_ a way to turn my leg back, right? I don’t want it to—to break off!”

“Of course there is. Right now there’s too much natural energy in it, but as long as you’re not totally petrified you can reverse it. You just need to rebalance your chakra and push the natural energy out.”

Balancing chakra is practically second nature by now, but being nervous makes everything much harder. It takes half an hour to revive his leg, and then he unnerves himself by feeling it to make sure it’s flesh but not being able to feel it.

And because he wants to go home—and because he is _going_ to master Ninshuu if it kills him—he tries again.

But he does remember to ask Kyuubi-sama that night if he can visit home.

 **Concentrate on your work,** it says carelessly, without even looking at him.

“It’s _keeping_ me from concentrating! Today I turned my leg into stone because I couldn’t stop thinking about it!”

**That doesn’t sound like a good reason to let you go. It sounds like you would suffer a much worse accident with more distractions available.**

“I wouldn’t! I’d be able to put it aside if it were something I got to do regularly! I—”

Kyuubi-sama lifts one hand and delicately pins Itama to the ground. It’s not even using the full weight of its hand, which makes it even more frustrating how much Itama has to struggle to rise. **I,** it says, **do not want you to. Tell me, Senju Itama, which of us is the god here?**

Angry tears sting his eyes, and his ears grow hot. “You said you don’t use threats to control people. You kept saying humans were the bad ones, but I’ve done everything you wanted, I promise I’ll keep doing what you want! Just let me see my family!”

 **Let me explain to you, then,** says Kyuubi-sama, settling down into a sitting position, but not moving its hand. The other foxes around the fire are pretending they don’t see anything. Traitors, Itama can’t help but think, even though Kyuubi-sama is their god. **If I let you go, I have only your word that you’ll come back. I will _never_ trust a human that much, and I certainly don’t trust you, seeing how desperate you are. Humans forget promises astonishingly quickly once they have what they want.**

“Can’t you put some kind of—some kind of spell on me that will make sure I come back?”

Kyuubi-sama nods its long head. **Say I put a spell on you that will make you return even if you don’t want to. Will your brothers be pleased to see you compelled to come back to me like a dog on a leash? No? Will they take it quietly, or will they send more search parties into the forest? Will they, Senju Itama, stop at nothing to find their prince now that they know he is alive? Will they burn my forest to make sure I have nowhere to hide? Do you want me to kill them to protect what is mine?**

Itama has his eyes squeezed tight shut to prevent any more tears from leaking out, but he can feel Kyuubi-sama’s hot breath on his face, and its voice is so loud it drowns out everything else. He shakes his head, and a sob escapes him. “They wouldn’t! They wouldn’t, I’d t-tell them—I’d tell them not to!”

 **I’m not sure you quite understand what I mean when I say I can’t trust humans.** Kyuubi-sama sighs, a hot wind that smells more like charcoal than a real fox’s breath. When it speaks again, it sounds a lot less like it’s going to eat him, and more like a really rude and gigantic version of Mako. **Stop crying, runt. This is a difficult concept, I can see, so I’m going to try to explain it again. You are very important to me, as the amount of work it takes to find a human amenable to listen is more than I care to undertake again. Frankly, I expect to wait another thousand or so years to find another student. Thus, I don’t care to lose you before I am finished teaching. I would like you to think of this as a study opportunity. In exchange for isolating yourself from distractions for a year or so, you will gain powerful influence over the course of human history. This seems to me a small price to pay, although I can see that you humans value one year very differently than do immortals.**

It lifts its hand, and Itama pushes himself into a sitting position, scrubbing at his face with the sleeve of his kimono. He sniffles, feeling like a child, and says, “Don’t you have someone who you’d do anything to see again? What if someone was keeping you away from your father?”

**My father is dead, runt, and has been for three thousand years.**

“What if he was alive and you couldn’t see him? What if—if someone told you he was alive but he was pretending to be dead to teach you a lesson?”

**This hardly seems germane.**

“ _Can_ you imagine missing someone as bad as I miss my family?” he demands. “I know it’s important, okay! I know I need to teach everyone Ninshuu! I _want_ to teach everyone Ninshuu! I’m just not strong enough to do it this way. A month ago I went to see the coast and people started th-throwing rocks at me because they thought I was a spirit!” He almost wails, and buries his face in his arms. “I don’t even kn-know if I _am_ human any more and I just— _just—wanna see my family again_.”

Kyuubi-sama doesn’t say anything, just sits there like it’s waiting. He forces himself to stop crying, calm his breathing, speak without his voice trembling. “Could one of them visit? Just one? I know you could keep them from finding out where we are even if they came here.”

Kyuubi-sama sighs again. **Keeping just one human is such a lot of trouble.**

“Doesn’t the magnolia die when it only has grass for company?”

**Oh, very well. You’re just as manipulative as I would expect from a human. I’ll have to train you out of that.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if foxes called human kids pups because humans are the dogs of not-technically-being-dogs? OMG.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which a friend comes over.

And so, in the third month, Itama has to choose who he wants to see most. It’s unexpectedly painful. Should it be Tobirama, who has always understood him best? Hashirama, who’s surely grieving the most? Orochimaru, who… who…

Itama doesn’t have a good reason for wanting to see Orochimaru, not one he can put into words. But ever since their last argument, not speaking to her—knowing she’s angry at him—has been a needle in his heart. He’s never had a person who was his before, not someone who _chose_ to be his. Even though he’s an inconvenience to everyone, and even though she doesn’t like _anyone_ , Orochimaru decided she liked him.

Plus, she’ll _have_ to come talk to him if she finds out he’s alive.

So he tells Unrao to find a pale girl with golden eyes who smells like snakes. Unrao tells him it doesn’t know what golden is, but the snake thing is enough to go by. It leaves the glade in the morning, and Itama is too filled with nerves to do anything but crush, one after another, the rocks he’s supposed to be imbuing with sage chakra to show Kyuubi-sama. When he runs out of rocks he starts trying to stick them back together by pressing them really hard between his hands, gets distracted by Chuyo telling him about the Ninshuu sculpting method, and _actually_ is caught off guard when Orochimaru comes.

He stares at her, and her eyes widen just a little bit, which means she’s _very_ surprised and doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t seem to notice the crowd of foxes sniffing at her clothes and sandals.

“Chuyo-san, can you take me to her?” Itama murmurs. He slides up onto Chuyo’s back, and the other foxes part in front of them. He bites his lip, suddenly unable to think of anything to say to his best friend.

“Um, hey. So I’m alive. Hi.”

“Idiot,” says Orochimaru. His eyes grow hot, because it’s so exactly what he would have expected her first word to him to be, and he’s so relieved. Her eyes narrow. “Why are you smiling. As far as I can tell you’ve been kidnapped by foxes to play dressup and everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“I’m just happy to see you,” says Itama, beaming at the blur that is now Orochimaru. “Don’t you think the new outfit is kind of cool?”

“It looks ridiculous in summer,” she says. “Are you going to offer me tea?”

“Do we _have_ any tea?” he murmurs to Chuyo. It just yips a laugh. “Um, we don’t have any tea. All we have is water from the spring, sake from the other spring, and flower wine. I don’t actually know what’s in flower wine, but it’s pretty good?”

Orochimaru walks to a random place in the glade that she seems to decide is dignified enough, among the roots of the pillar tree at the west end of the clearing, and sits down very properly, as if she needs to impress the fox spirits. They seem to think it’s great fun, and all go rushing off to find various kinds of drinks. “Sake comes from springs, here,” she says when Itama has come over and sat down too.

“Um, yeah. I actually have no clue how they make that happen. I think it’s a sacred thing, like a blessing from Kyuubi-sama maybe. The foxes just like to get drunk.” He interprets her slightly raised eyebrow and hurries to explain: “Kyuubi-sama is the nine-tailed fox that showed up at the summit. Um, you probably guessed from its name. It’s a god of, um, forests, and possibly vengeance. And, balance, I think.”

She tips her head expressively to give him a look that says, _oh really?_

“K-Kyuubi-sama wouldn’t let me visit home because it was afraid I’d forget my promise and stay, but it let me have a visitor! I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten how to talk to humans and I’m making this weird.”

“What does a god of vengeance want from _you_.”

Itama furrows his brow and glances at Chuyo, unsure if he’s actually allowed to tell her. Chuyo just squints its eyes shut and curls its tail around its nose, a perfect silver moon. “It’s teaching me. Ninshuu is sort of a religion around the way chakra was intended to be used when it was first given to living things. I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting! It’s another point of view on history that we’d never get to hear otherwise!”

Orochimaru is doing the thing where she relaxes really visibly so people won’t be able to tell how tense she is. She accepts a cup of fruit wine from Amakai and drinks without even smelling it first. She raises her eyebrows delicately at Itama.

“I’m going to assume that means you’re interested, because I want to tell you. The Sage of Six Paths is the one who originally gave us chakra, and Ninshuu was his code about what it’s for. You’re wondering how Kyuubi-sama knew this—”

“Not really.”

“—it’s because it’s actually the child of the Sage. You’d better remember this and write it down when you go back to the village, because it’s really cool. Oh, you won’t believe what I’ve learned! There’s all kinds of stuff you can only do with Ninshuu, and the most amazing thing is that Ninshuu can’t be used to hurt anyone! I know that actually makes it _less_ interesting to you… er…” He flushes. Maybe that was a little out of line. But Orochimaru just looks coolly amused. “Anyway, it’s nothing like ninjutsu. I’ve been doing a lot of gardening. Don’t laugh, it’s really helpful.” Orochimaru gives no visible sign that she finds it funny. But she has been doing a lot of eyebrow-raising while she’s been here. He thinks it’s because she doesn’t know what to say. He continues trying to pretend they never had a falling-out at all by just telling her everything he knows, and she doesn’t stop him or really say anything. He has maybe too much fruit wine and gets flustered and  makes Tsusa take him to pee and then leans against a tree trunk pulling his hands down his face. He is probably making a fool of himself.

“What is it?” Tsusa asks, resting its chin on his head. He absently scritches its cheek, and it warbles.

“I just don’t know how to talk to her. I invited her here because I miss her, I really do, but it wasn’t like this last time! It was just normal!”

“I barely know what you’re talking about,” says Tsusa cheerfully. “I don’t know what humans do for fun. You’re kind of a weirdo, right?”

“She’s even weirder,” he assures it. “What she does for fun is make poison, basically. And invent ninjutsu. She’d probably like the gardening part, though.”

When he comes back Orochimaru is very carefully tasting and smelling the fruit wine, presumably to figure out what’s in it. “Have you figured it out?” he asks.

“Peach, plum… redberries… I don’t know the flowers,” she mutters.

“You won’t have seen them,” says Chuyo. “They only grow in Kyuubi-sama’s sacred glade. We call them white flowers.”

“What an imaginative naming scheme,” says Orochimaru, giving the impression that she would like to kill whoever came up with it. He doesn’t point out that she has no problem with ‘redberries,’ seeing as the name was thought up by humans. “Show them to me.”

Three foxes start toward the part of the glade where white flowers grow, but Shisura says, “We don’t have to listen to you. Coming in here and giving us orders. That’s just like a _human_.”

“Itama gives you orders.”

“Kyuubi-sama said he could,” says Shisura. “He’s Kyuubi-sama’s student and we’re to take care of him. You’re just a human who thinks the world was made for you to use.”

Her eyes narrow further. “I want to speak to Kyuubi.”

An outraged whisper of _Kyuubi-sama!_ goes through the foxes. Itama looks down uncomfortably. But the foxes all seem to angry to answer, so after a painful silence he does. “Kyuubi-sama isn’t here right now. It’s, uh, punishing the wicked?”

“What,” says Orochimaru.

“Humans who do bad stuff, I think.”

“I don’t believe _that_ ,” she says. “Else the Senju would have been wiped out before you were born.”

He doesn’t have an answer to that. He just murmurs, “It’s what I’ve been told.”

He tries to get Orochimaru to talk about what’s going on in the alliance while they wait—him surrounded by a  pile of foxes and her alone half a meter away targeted by their glares. She’s being way more of a jerk than normal about telling him anything, but at least she _is_ telling him things, and that’s enough for him. The alliance treaty did get signed by all six clans, and people are starting to move into the new protected territory to farm. He doesn’t manage to get her to say what she’s been doing, or his brothers. She keeps changing the subject and describing really horrible poisons, so he gives up.

Evening comes, several of the foxes leave to hunt, and Yarera starts a fire. “What’s taking so long?” Orochimaru hisses to Itama.

“Kyuubi-sama only left a few days ago,” Itama says apologetically. “It could take another week for it to come back.”

“Your teacher leaves for weeks at a time?” asks Orochimaru. Her contempt couldn’t be clearer.

“Well, it’s not a teacher really, not in the, uh, human sense. But it is a god. It has a responsibility to the land. And I do need to practice a lot, so I have plenty to do while it’s gone.”

“Hm,” says Orochimaru. She doesn’t speak for the rest of the night.

 

Luckily for Itama (who feels by that point that Orochimaru is maybe about to kill someone if she gets much more impatient), Kyuubi-sama comes back only two days later. It looks down at Orochimaru for a moment, and then nudges her with its nose. Both of them are still for a long time—it takes almost a full minute for Itama to realize that Kyuubi-sama initiated the Mind-Body Transmission technique to talk to her. It’s not as much of a strain to have someone else in your mind as it is to cast your mind to them, but still they stay motionless for far too long. Itama’s nerves draw it out into hours.

Orochimaru inhales sharply.

Kyuubi-sama sits back. **Your friend has a silver tongue, runt. I’d almost think you brought her here to make yourself look like a more pious student.**

“What?” says Itama, feeling like he’s missed something.

**The girl makes it sound like nothing less than a god will convince her to practice Ninshuu.**

“That and I said it’d have to kill me to make me leave,” says Orochimaru with some satisfaction. “Apparently I’m not wicked enough to kill.”

In that case, Itama really has to wonder what the definition of wickedness is. Not that he doesn’t like her, she’s his best friend—but she seems fascinated by every kind of pain, and well satisfied with causing suffering as part of her revenge. “That seems like quite a gamble,” he ventures. Orochimaru shoots him an unimpressed look. “So you’re staying here? With me?”

“Yes. Kyuubi-sama’s servants will just have to get used to me.” Several of the foxes roll their eyes. Itama notes that Orochimaru has added the honorific, now that she’s met Kyuubi-sama for herself. It’s really impossible _not_ to think of it as a god. “When will my first lesson be, then?”

 **Ask the runt,** says Kyuubi-sama. **You can have it whenever you like. Right now, my tails need brushing.**

 

Being Kyuubi-sama’s favorite student is weird, and he’s not sure he likes it. He’s given privileges like leaving the sacred glade just to make Orochimaru angry that she doesn’t have them. It’s like Kyuubi-sama wants to make them into enemies.

So Itama tries extra hard to be fair to Orochimaru. He argues for her whenever she doesn’t deserve to be punished, and tells her how to get the fox spirits to like her, and tries his best to be a good teacher. In a few weeks she relaxes back into her old habits and starts being unfailingly gracious to the foxes and bratty to Itama, as if they never had a fight at all. He’s so very grateful for it that he vows never to even imply that she likes him, ever again. He’s beginning to think, though, that she’s only actually _nice_ when she wants something. When she wants to make allies. She can’t seem to relax until she has lots of people on her side, to make sure that… just, sort of, to make sure.

Itama can’t help that he has private lessons with Kyuubi-sama, though. It’s trying hard not to have to actually teach Orochimaru anything, despite what she said, so it has to make sure Itama is ahead on lessons. She seems pretty okay with it—he suspects he’s a much better teacher than Kyuubi-sama, anyway.

So they’re sitting by an old tree on a hilltop that Chikusa found while Orochimaru gets more and more frustrated at not being able to feel the natural energy Itama insists is right there. “It’s a lot like chakra,” he says helplessly. She glares at him. “Try closing your eyes? It usually helps me when I meditate?”

She somehow is managing to glare at him with her eyes closed. He sighs. The natural energy feels really obvious to him now that he’s been keeping track of it for three months. He doesn’t get why she can’t feel it.

“Here, why don’t I change the flow suddenly. You might be able to feel the difference.”

“Fine.”

He pushes chakra into a marker stone and then places it to create a sudden null zone, totally devoid of natural energy except what the grass is putting off. He can actually see it wilting a bit. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes. Do it again.”

He picks up the stone and disperses the chakra in it again, and the natural energy returns to how it was.

“Tell me again what I’m looking for in the roots.”

So it’s a lot of that, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sake springs are actually naturally occurring, according to fujiwara “nyanko-sensei” madara


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhhhh my gosh you guys. it just keeps being monday. there is one EVERY WEEK. I don't know if I can handle this, conceptually speaking. anyway in this chapter there is... BAD STUFF? there is some torture that happens in this, which is more evocative than descriptive. frankly I am a weenie on torture, like itama. at least it's only like a paragraph or two.  
> ALSO, this caused a little confusion, there was in fact a time skip between this chapter and the last one. It was like, an amount of months.

Kyuubi-sama has said this will take a little longer than normal because it has to have physical form the whole time in order to bring Itama, but it will try and keep the trip short. Itama, for his part, isn’t really that excited—he doesn’t like the concept of punishing anyone, even people Kyuubi-sama somehow decides are wicked. But he has to admit it’s wonderful to be outside the sacred glade and well above the trees, even though the wind is cold enough to sting this late in autumn. He sits on Kyuubi-sama’s head and leans into the wind; occasionally hawks wheel around them, and a few cranes drop by to nod to Itama.

They’re going northeast toward Hot Water Country. Itama hasn’t heard very much about it, but it’s at least on the maps he found in the Senju Clan’s archives, unlike anything past the western border of Fire Country. What he knows about it amounts to fuzzy names of one or two towns and the fact that they have a lot of hot springs there. Because duh.

When he asks, Kyuubi-sama says, **I sense high concentrations of malice. It’s beginning to affect the natural energy in the area.**

“Why can that even happen?”

**You can sense emotions in chakra signatures, can you not?**

“Yeah?”

**It has a tangible effect on chakra, which bleeds into the air and earth and in turn affects natural energy. Natural energy has a tendency to grow sluggish and stagnant when exposed to too much malice. That is why vengeance is a necessary aspect of a nature god.**

Itama looks down at his hands fisted in Kyuubi-sama’s fur and takes a deep breath in, then out. And he asks the question he’s been wondering about for months and months, ever since Orochimaru came. “Why did you let my clan live, then? And the Uchiha?”

Kyuubi-sama snorts, ruffling the tops of the trees. **You attribute more malice than there actually was. Your pathetic clans were choked with desperation for survival. It’s a common thing, and the whole world stinks of it. Your clan was nothing more than a bunch of particularly stupid, frightened animals.**

“Don’t say _was_ ,” Itama mutters. “They’re still there, and I’m going to go back to them.”

 **It’s a compliment, runt. They’ve nearly figured it out now. They’re practically civilized**.

He lets himself tip over backward to glare at the clear sky. It’s so blue it hurts to look at, so he squints his eyes mostly shut. He _knows_ his father was malicious. Senju Butsuma would have spat on the grave of every last Uchiha, even if it took him years. But why was he so eager to throw away the lives of his own clan? If Kyuubi-sama is right, then he wasn’t evil, he was just… stupid. Self-centered. That’s somehow much worse. The idea that none of them could help what they were, what they did. It’s _terrifying_.

“What on earth does real malice look like, then?”

**You’ll see soon enough. You should be able to sense it in a quarter hour.**

He closes his eyes and searches, but he can’t feel any people. Does something feel a little off? He can’t decide. “My range isn’t that good except when I’m on the ground, though. Or in a tree or something. I haven’t really figured out how to use the natural energy in the air. It just moves too much.”

 **You’ll know** , Kyuubi-sama tells him.

And a quarter hour later, he does know. Normally sensing emotions is like searching someone’s face for what they’re thinking. This is likes sitting downwind of a three-week corpse, like the half-eaten deer he used to occasionally find in the woods. He wrinkles his nose, but because it’s in his chakra sense that doesn’t help. Did his father feel like that, once? He can’t remember. It wasn’t like this at home, but it was _home_. If you live in a butcher’s shop, you probably don’t even smell blood.

Kyuubi-sama must be able to feel him wincing, because it says, **Just so. They’re abhorrent to all of nature. They must be wiped out.**

Itama doesn’t want to see what they’re doing—he peeks out from between his fingers, so timidly that he can barely distinguish that they’re humans down there. **Look, runt. Don’t hide from the malice in the world. Face it.**

He curls his fingers so that his hands are only in front of his mouth, feeling like a young child chewing his fists. Down below the humans are looking up from what they were doing—panting bodies, both human and animal, relax from their tension back into the ground. Over the shouting Itama can almost hear their pained whimpering. They’re so small from here that he nearly doesn’t see they’re tied up for all the flowing blood. But he does see the whips. At least they’re not knives, he thinks, feeling dizzy. It would be too much like _that day_. It’s too easy to see himself down there in the sticky drying blood and smell burnt flesh and his own overwhelming fear and hear laughter because true malice thinks his pain is _funny_ , or it’s some kind of revenge, like hurting people isn’t just something they do because they have to it’s something they enjoy and Kyuubi-sama should have destroyed them but instead they get to learn the error of their ways and become peaceful in the new alliance and _it isn’t fair_ because he will _never get to go back to how he was before they ruined him_.

His whole body is locked up so rigid he trembles. Tears and snot are dripping down onto his beautiful snow kimono.

He smells smoke and his own burning flesh. Someone else’s burning flesh? Burning grass like the summer wildfires in the fields. Burning trees like a lightning storm.

**Runt, are you listening?**

He trembles in place.

Kyuubi-sama sighs, a wind that snuffs out the fire below. **Somehow, I don’t think you learned the lesson I brought you here for.**

“Will you protect me?” mumbles Itama through numb lips. Kyuubi-sama turns around without saying anything and starts to walk, and for a long time Itama is sure it didn’t hear him. Then it says,

 **Of course I’ll protect you. What do you take me for? I may be a bad teacher, but I’m not _that_ bad.** It walks in silence for a time, while Itama’s heart slowly, slowly comes down from its hummingbird frantic beat. **There may be more than I thought to protect you from.**

Itama snaps his mouth shut halfway through a hysterical bark of laughter. “Yeah,” he says. “If you—if you told me wh-what they were…” He swallows a tiny sob and wipes his face on his sleeve. “I just want to go home.”

 

It takes the rest of the day and then a few hours in the morning to get back to the glade. Itama does manage to calm down, because it’s hard to believe anything could hurt him sitting on the head of a thirty-meter-tall god of vengeance. And he’s not thinking, not thinking, not-thinking about what he saw. How he already knew _precisely_ the worst malice of humankind. He grows out-of-season pears for his dinner and pays the tree back in natural energy caught from the wind, then sleeps curled up in the hollow of Kyuubi-sama’s warm flank, his head pillowed on one of its front legs. Winter can’t find him there, circled by a god of fire.

In the morning when the sun is still low in the sky they make it back home. Itama is more relieved than he can put into words, with all the fox spirits doing their tongue-hanging-out smiles and winding their bodies around him like they need to make sure he still smells like a fox. He hugs them around their necks two and three at a time, smiling into their fur.

“You’re going to ignore me, are you?”

He looks up from Sakaru’s shoulder and manages a smile with almost no lingering terror. “You’re back! If you want a hug you’ll have to come over here, though.”

“No thank you,” says Orochimaru. He’s pretty sure she secretly wants a hug but won’t let herself ask. He’ll find an excuse to give her one later. Now that he’s tried hugging her he knows that she _won’t_ try to kill him, she’ll just insult him the whole time.

“Well, you at least have to tell me about the Snake Sage. And everything! Did you learn how to make sage chakra?”

“I did.” She looks very smug, in that endearing Orochimaru kind of way. “I’ll show you once you’re through getting mobbed.”

Yarera sticks its tongue out at her and tries to sit on Itama. He’s not very successful pushing it away since it weighs twice as much as he does, but at least it knows he doesn’t want to be sat on. Eventually he manages to convince Tsusa to take him back to his tree, and Kyuubi-sama tells the rest of the foxes they’ve got work to do (which is a lie, as foxes never do work), so Itama leans back against a warm curled-up fox and clasps his hands in his lap to give Orochimaru an expectant look.

She rolls her eyes but does a tiny smirk. “Well, wait a few minutes. And don’t disturb me.”

“I know! I literally turned my leg to stone twice!”

“Shh!”

He _shh_ ’s and just quietly watches her, with one hand stroking Tsusa’s head. She’s been gone for about a month, which is longer than it took him to make sage chakra, but maybe she was doing other stuff too, like meeting important snakes at fancy snake parties? She looks a little older, maybe—is it her hair? No, she’s gotten herself a pair of earrings that look like snake fangs. They might actually _be_ snake fangs? That seems a little weird, like wearing human teeth to a Senju party, but maybe snakes have a different culture. Would foxes wear fox fangs? They might.

Slowly sage markings fade in on her face. They’re almost the same purple as what she already has, so it kind of just looks like they’re spreading, dripping down her nose and curling off her eyebrows and creeping up her chin like fangs. When she opens her eyes, they look like Itama’s when he fills himself with sage chakra, golden and slit-pupiled. Only, her eyes look like that all the time, so nothing has actually changed. Is that why—

“I think the Snake Sage has different ideas than Kyuubi-sama does about what one is to do with sage chakra.”

“Like what? What would you even do with it besides help plants grow and reinforce buildings?”

Orochimaru rolls her eyes. “You have no imagination. You can use sage chakra in ninjutsu, if there’s a technique that requires more chakra than you actually have. Because of the mixing ratios you have half again as much chakra as usual.”

“We’re not going to _need_ ninjutsu any more,” he tells her, setting his face in a stubborn frown. “There won’t be any more wars. Never again.”

Orochimaru clicks her tongue in disgust and glares out the gap in the tree trunk, but she doesn’t say anything, which means she knows he’s _right_. After a while she says, “Sage chakra can also reinforce your own body to make you faster and more resistant to harm. It’s a good defensive application. Not that Kyuubi-sama believes in defense.” She turns her luminous eyes on Itama again. “Speaking of offense, I heard you went to watch the oh-so-secret punishment of the wicked.”

His hand pauses on Tsusa’s head, and it flicks its ear. “Yeah,” he says.

“Well?”

“Do you really want to push this? Ask Kyuubi-sama if you’re so curious. My summary is: it sucked.”

“The punishment, or the wickedness?”

Itama closes his eyes and starts slowly taking in natural energy.

“Itama.”

He’s getting faster at it now, and he’s still much faster than Orochimaru. There’s a lot of things he’s better at now than she is—he has a better sensing range while he’s on the ground, and he can hold Mind-Body Transmission for over twice as long.

“Don’t ignore me,” Orochimaru hisses.

Something snaps together inside him, like green branches pulled apart and let go. He opens his eyes; everything is brighter, and he can actually _see_ the flow of energy. “I already told you I’m not going to talk about it. I’m not a dumb little kid who’ll let you bully me into having a panic attack any more.”

“Worth a try,” she says, with badly-disguised sullenness. “Kyuubi-sama never tells me anything. I’m pretty sure if it could kill me without you leaving it would.”

Itama grimaces at her apologetically. “You make really bad first impressions. _Really, really_ bad first impressions.”

“And is that my fault.”

“Yes!”

“All right, please shut up and reinforce your face so I can hit you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kurama’s method of fighting evil is kind of… half-assed and ineffective. If you only target groups that actively enjoy causing harm, you’re missing at LEAST half the harm that’s out there. Probably closer to three quarters. That said, I don’t think Kurama really cares all that much.
> 
> here's pics of our kids in sage mode and cute spirit outfits!  
> 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm pleased to inform you that this chapter is more or less nice! Itama gets some good news, and has the chance to talk to a human.

“How is it?” Itama demands, as soon as he senses Kyuubi-sama’s chakra condensing into the clearing. Oops. He might have spoken a little too early. He drags himself closer to the center of the clearing, too excited to ask someone to carry him, and says it again. “How is it, Kyuubi-sama?”

**Humans live short lives, but I don’t think they are short enough to justify bombarding me with questions the moment I return to my own sacred glade, runt.**

“It was _one_ question. And you said you’d find out how the new village is doing!”

 **As if I didn’t already know.** Kyuubi-sama snorts, blowing Itama’s hair back and filling his nose with the smell of smoke. He sneezes. **Find the brush and _then_ we’ll talk.**

Itama holds it up, having anticipated this exact thing, and gives Kyuubi-sama a triumphant smile. It shakes its head, but walks a little closer anyway before lying down so Itama won’t have to drag himself over. He starts in on its closest tail, which as always needs no brushing. But Kyuubi-sama either enjoys the feeling, or enjoys making someone groom it like a servant. It probably likes it better, Itama has decided, when it’s not an _actual_ servant doing the brushing. There’s no point making a servant do a servant’s job. Making a free human do a servant’s job is much more satisfying.

The god of forests, fire, and vengeance is _petty_.

 **The village is as boring as always. More humans are migrating to it. Must be an _economy_. ** Kyuubi-sama says the word with disgust, having clearly worked hard to continue to have no idea what an economy is. Itama stifles laughter in the shoulder of his haori. **They’re cultivating more farmland. I can’t imagine what you find interesting in this.**

“Not the way you tell it, no. Did you see my brothers?”

He’s described them too many times for Kyuubi-sama to pretend it doesn’t know which they are. But it has an eye-rolling feel to its huge chakra. **I felt them. I’m sure your white brother noticed me too, but he didn’t raise a fuss. They’re walking around talking to people. I honestly don’t know what you expected.**

“Every time I ask, I’m disappointed,” says Itama mournfully. But really, he’s still glad he got an answer at all. The village is doing well, his brothers are still healthy. There’s something for him to come back to. And oh, it will be _soon_. “Does the village have a name?”

**And how would I know that?**

Itama groans. “You’re the worst god ever.”

Kyuubi-sama raises one enormous hand and flicks him delicately in the back of the head, with a force like a club whacking into him. If he didn’t reinforce his skull with natural energy he’d have a concussion, or worse. He turns to glare reproachfully at it, but it just gives the impression of smirking. **I’m _your_ god, runt.**

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to find out for myself. Thanks for leaving me _some_ mystery.” He raises his eyebrows hopefully at his god, and it squints its eyes shut.

**Soon. I’ll have to devise some kind of final test for you. Oh, here we are. I want to hear a plan for how you’ll put my teachings into practice. Might as well have something on how you’ll keep _that one_ in line.**

When he looks around to follow its gesture, Orochimaru is returning to the clearing with a basket of fern shoots for frying. She raises an eyebrow, which is just about the most insolent she’ll get around Kyuubi-sama. “I take offense,” she says. “I keep myself in line perfectly well.” Itama and Kyuubi-sama both snort at that, and she looks even more offended.

“But we’re going home, Orochimaru! I’ll get to see my brothers again, and you can pretend you don’t like doing chakra research with Tobirama! And I can wear clothes that don’t make me look like a snow ghost!” Orochimaru likes her new clothes a lot, of course. They’re white too, with strange tangles that could be either purple brambles or long winding serpents. Unlike Itama, she actually got to help design them—he didn’t even realize it was an option. Itama would rather wear _colors_.

“How soon?” she asks.

**Didn’t you hear me, snake? You’ll go home when the runt convinces me he knows how to use his powers. Now fetch another brush, will you.**

Orochimaru sets her basket down by the firepit and goes to get another brush with reasonably good grace. Kyuubi-sama seems to be in a good mood too, because Itama manages to coax it into telling them the story of the first typhoon, which is also the story of an extremely silly argument between two of its siblings: the god of wind and luck, and the god of deep sea coral and illusions. It still won’t say their names, though—those are too sacred for human ears to hear, so it calls them by numbers instead.

Maybe an hour into the brushing session ( _some_ progress made on Kyuubi-sama’s enormous expanse of fur) two of the younger fox spirits, Unrao and Satta, come shooting into the glade, skidding to a stop and spraying fragments of moss over Itama and Kyuubi-sama’s newly-groomed tails. “Itamaaaa,” Satta whines, as Itama frowns at all the moss bits. “You gotta come help. There’s a human lost in the forest, and you know how humans are.”

“They never accept help,” sniffs Unrao sadly. “But they’ll accept help from other humans!”

“That’s not an insult, though,” Satta assures him.

“Uh, no offense taken,” Itama mutters. At what? At being called a human? “But shouldn’t Orochimaru go? Humans riding around on giant foxes doesn’t really inspire trust either.”

“Have you met her?” asks Satta.

He glances over to Orochimaru, who is brushing the fur near Kyuubi-sama’s neck. She looks torn between being proud of having a reputation and insulted that the foxes would actually mention it.

“I mean, I’ll try,” he says. “If Kyuubi-sama will permit.”

**Go on then. You’re an ambassador. Ambassidate.**

Itama barely restrains the urge to tell it not to make up words, because he has better things to do. Namely levering himself up onto Unrao’s back. “Do you want to come, Orochimaru?”

“I suppose I might as well. If Kyuubi-sama will permit.” Kyuubi-sama waves an impatient hand, so she jumps down off its side to approach and make a shallow bow to Satta. It’s only in the last couple of months that the foxes have warmed up to her enough to let her ride them, mostly because Shisura was really _loud_ about hating her. But they mostly like her now. She’s clever in a fox sort of way.

Foxes are fast, too, so it only takes maybe half an hour to get where they’re going through the dense underbrush. When Unrao slows down enough that Itama can brush his hands over the trunks of trees as they pass, he senses human chakra a few hundred meters away. Not a shinobi, certainly, but strong. Healthy. Also worried, maybe even frantic.

“Hello?” Itama calls. The chakra spikes attentively. “Are you lost?”

“Yes!” says a woman’s voice. She appears through the dense bushes, a woodcutter with sticks on her back and an axe on her belt. “Can y—oh.”

Itama smiles, trying to look harmless. “Don’t let the foxes alarm you. Me and her are human, and we’re friendly. I’m sure we can guide you out of here, if you want. It seems like you’ve been caught in Kyu—there’s a sort of spell on this part of the woods, to make sure people don’t get too close to anything they shouldn’t.” The woman, brown-haired and pale, still seems a little nervous. “I’m Itama. What’s your name?”

“Um—I’m, I’m Inuho.” She looks from him to Orochimaru, who looks by far the most like an evil spirit.

“Pleased to meet you, Inuho-san. Orochimaru, you’d better not be freaking her out.”

“How exactly would I stop? My face is my face.”

“What do you say, Inuho-san?” He’s smiling so wide that his face is starting to hurt. It’s probably a bit creepy, and Inuho looks overwhelmed.

“Um, sure,” she mumbles.

“Where’s your village?”

“A bit from the coast,” she says. “Maybe fifty kilometers? Not too far from the border with Hot Water.”

Itama puts out his hand again to touch the trunk of the pillar tree Unrao is standing by. Through its roots and through the ground, he can feel five human settlements and a few places where other animal spirits gather, like the cranes. He thinks she must be talking about the one that’s northwest of the only town he’s visited in the last year and a half, the fishing village where children threw stones at him and Tsusa. He opens his eyes and says, “You’re a long way from home, Inuho-san. But I think I can get you to a road, so you won’t need us the whole way. Follow us.” Unrao starts walking again, slower than its usual because Inuho needs to keep up. He glances over at Orochimaru, who is having what looks like a whispered argument with Satta. They seem to be having fun. “How long have you been lost?”

“Huh? Uh, I think a week. I’ve been hunti—” She stops herself halfway through the word.

“No-one minds if you hunt in sacred places, Inuho-san. We’ve all got to eat.”

“Uh, right.” She turns her face away and concentrates much harder than necessary on picking her way around a bush. Itama makes her uncomfortable, but she’s trying her best to be polite so she doesn’t make him angry. It makes him sad instead. He wishes there were some way to show her that he means no harm. She’ll get it eventually, he supposes, once she realizes they brought her home safe. So it’s encouraging when a few minutes later she says, “If, um, if you’re a human, why are you… you know?”

“I’m studying,” Itama tells her. It’s easier than the slightly-more-true truth, and it hurts less. It doesn’t matter anyway, he’s going to get to go _home_ soon. It doesn’t even feel real. “Learning how to use the energy of nature. My teacher is, um, very picky, about who it takes as a student, so it’s not an opportunity a lot of humans have. It’s very interesting! I’m learning a lot about gardening.” She smiles a little at that, which is good. Gardening is kind of a silly way to put it. “I’m from the Senju clan, maybe you’ve heard of us? Er, probably not good things, now that I think about it. But we’re getting better, I hear.”

“Senju… the clan of eternal war…”

“Right, it turns out it’s not really fun when you have to do it, either.” How come no-one calls the Uchiha the _clan of eternal war_? It must be because they’ve got something more interesting, the sharingan.

“And your friend?”

“Orochimaru, come say hi!”

Orochimaru gives him a dirty look, and then turns her glare on Satta when it brings her closer. “Hello. Pleased to meet you, Inuho-san. Are we talking about what scum the Senju are?”

“Satta, come over here so I can whack her.”

Satta, giggling, comes closer, but Orochimaru jumps off its back to just walk. Itama can sympathize. Having to sit up straight and balance is a lot of work.

“I’m Tsukikage Orochimaru,” she says, walking closer to Inuho than to Itama. “I became Kyuubi-sama’s student more out of curiosity than a desire to fix the whole world.”

“Kyuubi-sama?”

Itama’s pretty sure that’s supposed to be secret. He glares at Orochimaru, but she’s walking in front of him so she doesn’t see. “Didn’t Itama mention? It’s the god who’s teaching us. I’m sure you can guess what sort of god it is.” She gestures to Satta, who’s beside her now. Its back comes up to Orochimaru’s shoulder. “It wants humans to learn Ninshuu, the so-called ‘correct’ usage of chakra. Creation rather than destruction.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asks Inuho. From this close Itama can get a fuzzy sense of her emotions: confused, wondering, barely scared at all.

“I thought Kyuubi-sama could use a few more disciples,” says Orochimaru in her fox-smile voice. “No god should ever be lonely. And it would be very satisfying if, say, it realized that humans worthy to learn aren’t nearly as rare as it thought.

Maybe spite _can_ be a force for good. If anyone can figure that out, it’s Orochimaru.

A few hours later Itama stops to grow some plums for supper. Inuho watches with round eyes, and Itama knows she’s going to tell her whole town everything. He thinks he might understand what Orochimaru’s going for: a rumor campaign, of sorts. She wants people to know what Ninshuu looks like and who’s teaching it. In her way, she’s already working to spread the Sage’s teachings.

It takes most of two days to get Inuho back to a road she recognizes. They leave her with a pack full of plums and a head full of stories. She leaves them with sincere thanks and a smile Itama wasn’t expecting. “You’re good kids,” she tells them. “And some day, I think you’re going to be great.”

Itama glows the whole way home, a trip that only takes three hours. And then he gets to work planning, with Orochimaru’s help. What can Ninshuu do for the new village, and the six clans that protect it? Orochimaru has a lot of suggestions about agriculture. Itama has been thinking about the possibility of earthquakes and storms. He’s also pretty sure that healing is easier to learn than medical ninjutsu, so that’s a good one too. They think so hard about it that at one point his stomach growls and he looks up to find that Kyuubi-sama is sitting just a few meters away, and he somehow didn’t notice its _enormous_ chakra. It looks like it’s laughing at him.

The autumn equinox is set as the day they’ll return. A year ago Itama had no idea what an equinox even _was_. His clan has always considered astronomy to be the realm of the Uzumaki and not bothered with it. But it’s important to understand the flows of natural energy, and it’s fastest at the equinoxes, like a tide suddenly rushing in. On solstice, it’s almost completely still as it reverses its direction. So coming back on the equinox, when energy is storing itself away as fast as it can for winter, that’s a good omen. So Kyuubi-sama says. Itama’s just ready to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite Kurama thing is when he acts like an old man. But he’s VERY, VERY old so instead of refusing to learn what smartphones are he’s refusing to learn what money is.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Itama receives a gift; foxes who can’t read the atmosphere do their best to ruin a touching reunion; Hashirama gets taught a lesson.

It’s very… ceremonial. Orochimaru has to ride on a fox spirit too, even though she’d rather walk. They need to match, apparently. All of this is from the elder fox Goutou, with Kyuubi-sama’s presumed approval. They set out at dawn, with Kyuubi-sama shadowing them as far as the borders of its domain. The sun is still barely rising above the trees when it stops them, to touch its nose delicately to Itama’s forehead. He hasn’t shared its mind a lot since that first time—it made its point, and they haven’t really needed to. Today, it’s not like it was then. It’s a lot more like sharing a human’s mind.

Itama, it says, in that voice that sounds like any Senju elder. You’re a fine pupil. You’d better turn the human world on its ear, or I won’t forgive you, got that?

Of course, he says warmly. He lets out a bit of emotion: I’ll miss you, I’ll visit, I’ll make you proud. He gets the sensation of Kyuubi-sama’s nose snorting softly in his face.

I have a parting gift for you, runt. Not that I won’t see you again, but you deserve something for putting up with me for a year and more.

What is it? What kind of gift could a god have to give him that can be given only inside his own mind?

My name. Don’t go giving it out to any nosy humans, not even your snake. Defend it as you have me.

He opens his eyes to see the empty forest in front of him, the phantom sensation of a wet nose pressed to his forehead. Kurama. The nine-tailed god. His first thought is, absurdly, how it sounds a bit like the naming tradition of the Senju. It sounds like the names of his brothers.

“Thank you, Kyuubi-sama,” he whispers.

 

They make it to the new village at sunset, with the long shadows of the trees not quite reaching across the fields to the road. Until they arrived, it was a normal day in harvest season. People were talking in the streets of a small village that didn’t exist a year ago, hauling water and vegetables and rice and everything else people do. Now, they’re stopped in their tracks to stare, just like that fisherman right before he said _Can you see that kid?_ And he _knows_ he looks like a spirit, colorless in the red light of sunset, riding an enormous fox, with his perfectly clean robe dragging in the dust. He recognizes Tetsuya, Orochimaru’s favorite mushroom merchant from the Senju village market. Tetsuya, too, is staring, frowning at them like he’s trying to remember.

Itama has heard too many stories about people going to the land of the spirits and finding that a hundred years have passed, or no-one remembers them when they come home. He swallows and reaches out his hand for Orochimaru, with Tsusa and Satta walking close together under the heavy gazes of the villagers. She takes his hand, though of course she must not be afraid. He is afraid. When he imagined this moment, he forgot to imagine that anyone except his brothers would be here.

“Um, excuse me, Tetsuya-san? Do you know where my brothers are?”

Tetsuya blinks, like he’s trying to get something out of his eyes. “Itama-kun? And Orochimaru? That really you?”

“Yeah.” Tears are gathering in his eyes, and he widens his eyes and looks up at the tops of the trees so they won’t fall. “I know we’ve been gone a long time. I just want to see my brothers.”

“And they’ll be wanting to see you too. You’re supposed to have been dead more than a year. I just wish you wouldn’t bring those—hell, what are those things?”

“What do _you_ think?” snaps Tsusa. “Haven’t you ever seen a fox before? Humans! And you want me to leave Itama to _walk_? Hmm?”

Tetsuya holds up his hands, wide-eyed. “I’m sure I didn’t mean any disrespect, Miss Fox! Follow me.”

The villagers give them a wide berth as they walk down the street. Not one of them seems to be happy that Orochimaru and Itama are alive. Just… shocked. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, hoping desperately that Tobirama won’t look at him with that blank expression, that familiar fear. Hashirama would never… probably. But Tobirama might. He’s always been cautious around things that can hurt him.

It’s not a big village, and it’s not a long walk to the center. Right there is the pavilion Hashirama built for the six-clan summit. The table and chairs are gone, and now it’s a little park in front of what he guesses is an administrative building. Of course his brothers will be there.

People in the front room of the building give them strange looks. When Itama catches his brother’s eyes it doesn’t matter any more.

Tobirama stands up from the paper-covered table where he’d been talking to someone, knocking his chair over with a loud _bang_. He doesn’t seem able to move—Itama curls his fist into the fur at Tsusa’s neck, willing it to take him closer, until they’re standing right in front of Tobirama’s desk. “Hey, big brother,” Itama whispers, his throat painfully tight. Tobirama looks like he might cry too.

“Itama.” He reaches out, and Itama holds out his arms too, and Tobirama drags him across the stupid table and all the paperwork and holds him as tight as if he’ll never let go. “Get over here, Orochimaru,” he says (his voice changed while Itama was gone!). “If you think you can get out of a hug after you’ve been missing for over a year… Everyone thought you’d deserted.”

Tobirama doesn’t smell quite the same. He’s using a new kind of soap now, and he doesn’t smell as much like metal, and growing up does make people smell different. But it’s still him. Itama could pick him out of a crowd blindfolded from five paces away if he’s been working up a sweat. A moment later Orochimaru comes close enough for Tobirama to pull her in too, even though it means she’s leaning awkwardly over the table.

“We all thought you were dead,” he whispers. “That you’d been eaten or something. You need to tell me why.”

Itama clutches his brother’s haori even tighter and pushes his forehead into Tobirama’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” How did he manage to forget how unfair it was? How did he manage to forget his brothers’ pain?

After only a few seconds Orochimaru starts squirming to get away from the hug, and Tobirama lets go of both of them. “Yuugi-san, would you mind if I went home for the day?” he asks hoarsely.

“We’ll take care of things here,” says Yuugi. “Go on. And, um, welcome back, Itama-kun, Orochimaru-kun.”

Tobirama hauls Itama into his arms, and just this once Itama lets himself tuck his face into his brother’s neck and be a kid who doesn’t mind being held. Just to be touching his brother for a while longer. He can feel the vibration in Tobirama’s chest when he says, “You’re welcome to come, kitsune-san, since you seem to be friends of my brother’s. It’s this way.” And Itama smiles into his shirt. He was worried for nothing. Tobirama is too polite.

The house is near the edge of the village, looking out over the fields where people are coming in from the day’s work. Tobirama pauses to watch Orochimaru step into the house with her filthy bare feet, followed by two very large and slightly muddy foxes. Itama is probably the only one who hears him sigh. He must be thinking about all the cleaning he’ll have to do. By the hearth there’s a grey cat dozing—when did Tobirama get a cat?—and he sets Itama down next to it. It opens one eye to watch the foxes, who are watching it in turn. Its ears turn backward as Orochimaru walks behind it.

“How?” asks Tobirama softly. “The last time I saw you, you were—going to be eaten. You were dripping with blood.”

Itama’s eyelids flutter to blink back tears, and he leans into his brother. Tobirama clutches his hand like he’s still afraid Itama will disappear. “Yes… You know what I told you, about the Mind-Body Transmission technique? How it lets you understand other people? I think… I think Kyuubi-sama was sort of impressed that I even tried. Later it told me it… or, I’m not sure if it was looking for a student all along. It came to the summit because it was sure a big alliance of humans was bad news. And it took me home on sort of a whim. But please don’t be angry at it. I know how much it hurt—I… you remember that I do know.” Tobirama squeezes his hand for a moment so tight that he has to reinforce it with chakra, but he goes on. “But it was important. I have a lot to teach everyone. I’m kind of a diplomat now, or like a medium between the humans and the spirits.”

“The last thing I said to you was that you’d make a great diplomat some day. ‘And that day will be today if you stop fretting.’ Even I didn’t imagine how true that would be.”

“Have you got any sake?” asks Tsusa loudly from the other side of the room, where it’s sniffing around. Tobirama’s head jerks up sharply, and he looks so vulnerable for a moment with his wet eyes and his look of total confusion that Itama’s heart breaks a little.

“I only have tea and water,” Tobirama says automatically. Orochimaru appears from wherever she was—snooping around the house?—and folds herself elegantly into a sitting position next to Itama to start poking at the banked fire.

“Tea is that nasty stuff cranes drink,” says Satta. “I can’t believe you don’t have any sake. Hey, Tsusa, is it polite to turn into a human for this?”

“Of course,” says Tsusa, puffing itself up. Itama hides a smile as he leans his shoulder into Tobirama for reassurance. There certainly isn’t a rule of etiquette for being a guest at a human’s house, or at least there wasn’t until today. By the time the foxes sit down, they’re two pale young ladies with improbable maple-red hair. But they don’t know how to sit politely, so they sprawl out on their bellies to watch Orochimaru feed the fire.

“Um, when will Hashirama be home, do you think?” Itama asks.

“Ah.” Tobirama seems to shake himself out of a daze. “He still lives in the old village, since he’s the clan head. I’m helping to coordinate imports and defense here. But he’ll want to visit immediately when he finds out you’re—back.” Itama has the impression he was about to say _alive_ instead. Urgh.

“But we ought to live here,” Orochimaru says, talking over the half-formed answer Itama was about to make. “A new village is the perfect place to plant the seeds of Ninshuu, if you like that sort of thing. There won’t be innovation in the old village.” Itama wants to see _home_ , but at the same time he’s afraid to, as if he could become trapped again. The time has passed when he would have just wanted things to go back to being the same—it passed over a year ago. It’s probably better not to visit.

 

Four days later Hashirama comes skidding into the house just after dawn, waking up Itama with his thumping. He knows who it is before he even registers why he should be excited. “What’s… Tobirama, tell me it’s true! And tell me why your house is full of giant foxes?”

Itama sits up, rubbing his bleary eyes to try and make them behave. In the front room his brothers are talking loudly. Rude. “There are only two foxes. Tsusa, Satta, my older brother Hashirama.”

“ _Older_ —!”

“And yes, it’s true. He was sleeping until you came charging in here. Couldn’t you have gotten here at _any_ more reasonable hour? Did you skip sleeping last night?”

“I was just too excited! It was only another five hours… ohhh…” Hashirama is practically dancing in his excitement, thump thump thump on the floor. He throws open the bedroom door and then throws himself on Itama. “You’re alive! You’re really here! I don’t even know what to do…” He pulls back to hold Itama by the shoulders, grinning so broadly it looks like his face is going to split in half. Tears start to fill Itama’s barely-working eyes, but he doesn’t think Hashirama ever sees them, because he hugs Itama tightly and starts kissing his face. “Never go away again. Never.”

“Ah,” says Itama. “Good morning, brother. Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re the worst,” Hashirama groans. Over his shoulder Itama can see Tobirama standing in the doorway, smiling at them like he’s got everything he ever wanted. The foxes are peering around him with interest. Itama wipes his tears away on Hashirama’s shoulder and grins.

“I’m kind of the worst,” he agrees. “I can’t really say sorry enough. But it was important.”

“Nothing’s more important than my little brother being safe and well,” mutters Hashirama, sound dire. “That’s… that’s what I want to say. But if something is important to you, I have to listen. Tobirama’s whacked me enough for that to sink in.” In the doorway, Tobirama makes a little satisfied huff sound. “Still! Now that you’re back I’ll do everything I can! I’m the head of one of the Six Clans, you know.” He waggles his eyebrows, and Itama has to laugh.

“At least you’ll never get any less full of yourself,” says Itama fondly—Hashirama whines in protest and ducks his head. Itama can actually feel his mood changing, through his chakra. The weirdest thing about him, though, once Itama is paying attention, is that natural energy seems to flow in and out of him like waves washing up on the beach. He really is a little like a tree—maybe that’s why he can do that creepy tree thing? Or is it _because_ he can do the creepy tree thing?

“What’s that creepy tree thing you do?” Itama asks. This has the effect of making Hashirama frown even more sadly at being called creepy. “Can you tell me how you do it? I’ve never heard of a human who doesn’t have to actively try to take in natural energy.”

“What’s natural energy?”

Itama heaves a sigh, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t want to explain this before breakfast.”

Hashirama insists on carrying him out to breakfast, which is _sort of_ okay, but sort of weird, and Itama would really prefer Tsusa to help him. He doesn’t say anything, though, he just shovels down his rice. It’s kind of weird, really. In the sacred glade, they only eat what rice they can steal, so he’s mostly been eating barbecued meat for a year and a half. He finds nothing goes down so well without flower wine, and the foxes seem to agree because they sulk terribly at every meal. “No-one’s keeping you here,” Itama told them two days ago (although he certainly doesn’t _want_ them to leave). “You’re free to go back to the glade and drink all the sake you can fit in your silly stomachs.”

“How could we leave!” Tsusa said, with great indignation. “We’ve got to help you get the humans in line!”

Maybe eventually Itama will convince them to hunt so they’ll stop complaining. But that day isn’t today, because he needs to explain natural energy to his brothers. “Since I have a captive audience,” he begins, “how good are you at chakra sensing, Hashirama?”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's just friend times and mild frustration.

He finds Orochimaru crouching on top of the water to feel the way energy flows in the rice fields. He’s never seen her wearing a hat before, but there’s also no way she wouldn’t burn with skin as fair as hers. The hat makes her look down-to-earth in the same way as watching her grind poisonous plants by hand, and Itama thinks it’s a good look on her.

She feels him and Tsusa approaching and opens her eyes, flicking water off her fingers. “Haven’t you ever learned to walk on water?” she asks, standing up. “Surely that can’t be energy-efficient.”

“I’m not getting my paws wet,” Tsusa says scornfully. “And before you ask, it’s not real fire, it won’t burn the plants.” Orochimaru glances behind them at Satta, who is cheerfully wading through the water. “Some people have no elegance,” Tsusa concludes.

“Elegance aside, why are you here?” asks Orochimaru. “You’re interrupting my work.”

“You need to be interrupted,” Itama says. “How long has it been since you took a break?” She seems to be actually trying to come up with an answer, although Itama already knows it’s been since about an hour past sunrise, so he holds out the wrapped box to forestall any answer. “We made you lunch.”

“So kind of you,” she murmurs. “I might as well eat this on dry land.” She walks off across the field, and they follow her to a tree at the edge that provides shade. It’s very welcome even though Itama hasn’t been out in the sun long at all. When she takes her hat off, he notices Orochimaru has a thin strip of burnt red skin on the back of her neck, from tipping her head down too far.

“You have a sunburn here,” he says, touching the back of his own neck as she sits down. “Do you want me to heal it for you?”

She starts untying the knot of the kerchief he wrapped her lunch in, not looking up at him. “I’m not _completely_ incompetent. I can heal myself.”

“Just trying to be nice,” he murmurs. “Have you found out anything useful?”

“Oh, plenty. I’m trying to decide which symbiotic plants will work the best with the rice, and if maybe I could breed a better strain of it. It will require a lot of experimentation, of course. I expect I’ll have to argue with all the farmers for months before they adopt the changes, since they can’t feel it themselves.” She glances at Itama with a strip of beef halfway to her mouth and raises one eyebrow. “And don’t say I should teach them to sense natural energy. They’re all adamant that they haven’t got time. Besides, who would listen to me? I’m just a ‘fifteen-year-old who looks a bit like a corpse.’”

Itama frowns. “Did someone say that to you?”

“Constantly, ever since I left my own village,” she says, looking exasperated that he even has to ask. “Don’t bother getting angry on my behalf, Itama. If I’m angry at someone, they will most assuredly know. But never mind that. Do you have any sponsors in mind? I haven’t kept up with who’s an authority in farming these days.”

“And you think I have? It’s not even my focus. You might as well talk to Tobirama, I’m sure he knows someone who knows someone.”

“Has he found _you_ a job yet?”

Itama sighs loudly and lets himself fall backward so he’s looking up into the leaves of the tree.

“That’s a no, then.”

“I can’t depend on him for everything. I was thinking of asking Takema’s cousin Kenga, since he’s working on building houses and public buildings and things like that.”

Orochimaru scoffs. “You can reinforce buildings any time. You don’t even have to ask anyone. Didn’t you come here to spread Ninshuu?”

“You think anyone’s going to listen to _me_? I’m fourteen and I can’t walk and half the civilians are still convinced I’m some kind of spirit! Nobody’s exactly going to come flocking if I build a school. Imagine _anyone_ calling me ‘Master Itama.’ I wish I were just grown up! _Hikaku_ has a job.”

“If you want to teach, teach those who will listen.”

“I don’t just want to teach, Orochimaru! I don’t want to just—just make other people able to do amazing stuff! I want to do amazing stuff too… but I just don’t know what. I know all these things about how energy flows through the world but I’m just one person! And no-one will _listen_.”

“What do you want me to tell you?” Orochimaru sounds annoyed, and he’s a little anxious even though he’s heard much worse from her. “I can’t change your situation or make you older. Have you actually _tried_ , or are you so afraid you’ll fail that you didn’t bother?”

“You’re a great friend,” Itama grumbles. “Your advice is really helpful. Ugh.”

Orochimaru radiates quiet smugness and continues eating. A few meters away Itama can hear Satta trying to start a splash fight. After a while he says, “Maybe I should go visit Kyuubi-sama? The plan I made for it seems stupid now that I’m back here. I had so much _confidence_.”

“What’s it going to tell you that you don’t already know? Wreak vengeance on anyone unhelpful? You’re better off waiting until you have something to report. Talk to someone who helped write the treaty. They all know you’re competent. And stop bothering me while I’m working.”

He gives it up, letting his arms flop over his face. “If I didn’t bother you you’d pass out from hunger. And you’d get lonely.”

“I don’t _get_ lonely,” Orochimaru hisses, but it’s more indignant than angry. “I get annoyed. Here’s your box back.” She drops it on his chest and stalks out onto the water, past the foxes, pushing her hat back up onto her head.

Itama heaves a sigh. Will she ever get less… like that? What would Orochimaru even be _like_ if she weren’t incredibly touchy?

 

He goes to see Elder Inoyo, the Yamanaka representative on the village council. He’s actually the only person in Rokuzoku who was at the treaty meetings, aside from Itama and his bodyguards. Elder Inoyo is working at his desk when Itama comes in—Itama sees his alarmed expression for just a moment before he smooths it over. It’s probably the foxes, though he can’t help but wonder why people are still surprised after he’s been here for almost two weeks. It _is_ kind of unnecessary for both of them to be here, but Satta feels left out otherwise, so Itama never tries to stop it from coming.

“Um, sorry for startling you, Honored Elder. I was hoping you might be able to help me with something.”

“I’ll do what I can, Itama-kun, but it seems rather strange that you wouldn’t ask a representative from your own clan.” He glances at Satta again—it’s sprawled out on the floor now. Itama eventually needs to teach them human etiquette.

He bites his lip. “Um, Orochimaru said that I should ask someone who helped write the treaty. Because you were there, and you know. Something about me.” Under Elder Inoyo’s stare he can’t quite bring himself to suggest that anyone else thinks he’s competent. “What I mean is that you have a lot of influence, and we’ve worked together before, and, um, I was hoping to sort of start a school? But I’m afraid no-one will come because they don’t take me seriously. But they take you seriously, so…”

He flushes and looks down. Why is it that whenever he tries to talk to humans he feels like a stupid child?

“A school… This would be for your Ninshuu?”

Itama glances up and nods, not daring to correct him that it isn’t _his_ Ninshuu. Two days before Hashirama got here he had to come before the whole council of Rokuzoku and explain where he was and why. He gets the impression that most of them are tolerant but not particularly happy with him, as if it was his choice to go missing for a year and a half.

“I’m not sure that letting a child run a school is the best use of our resources at this time,” says Elder Inoyo, faintly apologetic. “Perhaps when the village is more established, and when you are more established as well. You have only been here for two weeks. Give it time. You will adjust to the village, and it will adjust to you.”

He’s trying to be kind, and that only makes Itama’s eyes burn more. He nods and manages, “Thank you, Honored Elder. For your advice. Tsusa, come on.”

The moment he shuts the door behind them, Tsusa starts whispering angrily. “That stupid old man! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What resources? You can build a school by yourself! That was all complete bullshit, and if we didn’t have to play nice—”

He places a hand between its ears and says, “Tsusa.”

Its ears lay back and it lets its head hang. “I can’t believe you won’t let us help you.”

“We could scare them real good!” Satta adds. “They’d _have_ to listen to you then.”

“Just because Kyuubi-sama scares people to get them to do what it wants doesn’t mean I’m going to.  I don’t want people to be afraid of me. I’ve spent enough of my life afraid that I’m not going to do it to anyone else.”

“So you’re just not going to use your power?” Tsusa snaps. “What’s the point of having it then?”

“Fine! I’ll build a school! And then no-one will come to it and you’ll see that using my power doesn’t even make a difference! Let’s go find someplace to build. Satta, do you want to help scout?”

“People will come to your school,” Satta says, sounding _very_ certain considering that it has barely talked to anyone who lives in Rokuzoku, or really any humans at all. “I don’t know _that_ much about humans, but I do know you’re very curious. It’s like Kyuubi-sama came to your meeting to see what was going on. You just have to show them you can do really cool things.”

Itama doesn’t reply, he just shifts on Tsusa’s back to get comfortable as it speeds up into a lope and then a run. The village isn’t that big yet, and most of the land around it is either rice fields or nothing in particular. They’ll want somewhere the bedrock is pretty close to the surface, and hopefully somewhere they won’t have to clear too many trees. It takes maybe half an hour for Satta to come sprinting back, panting, “I found somewhere good! Follow me!”

It’s on the southeast side of the village, a hill that looks to be mostly made of rocks with a bit of a clearing around it. Itama likes the hill, really, likes the idea of a school at the foot of a hill, so he’s not going to take it apart. Instead he slides off Tsusa’s back to feel for the rock underneath the dirt in the flat clearing. That rock that lies under everything, that’s what he meditates on to mix natural energy into his chakra. To move it he’s going to have to be as steady and as solid as it is. He can’t be upset, he can’t think about Elder Inoyo, he can’t think that no-one will come to his school. All he can think is: I am more like rock than rock is.

He’s pretty good at earth-shaping naturally, since he has an earth affinity, so it isn’t terribly hard to bring the rock up to the surface. It would eventually, anyway, when all the dirt wore away. Now the ground swells and cracks, and a spire of good gray stone breaks the surface in front of Itama. He doesn’t really know that much about architecture, but for now probably all it needs is to be enclosed. He models it a little after the Yamanaka temple to the god of death, and a little after the beautiful Akimichi meeting hall, and a little after the Senju archives, smoothing his hands over the stone to shape it as if it were mud.

In the end it does sort of look like it’s made of mud, with his handprints on the lower part of the walls where he can reach. The roof looks sort of like an actual slate roof, and he’s tried to put decorations on the lintel of the doorway. There’s no actual door, but it’s not winter just yet so it’s probably fine. Satta takes him inside, and he realizes it needs windows. The extra stone from those—circular, and large enough to sit in—goes toward a line of lanterns out front. As long as he’s dreaming, he can have school at night too. Or even parties in the school.

By the time it’s finished to his satisfaction and safely reinforced by flowing natural energy to make it strong and alive, he’s tired from concentrating for hours and hours. The sun is getting low, but he can’t be bothered to get up from where he’s lying on his back between the rows of stone lanterns with the foxes pressed up against him.

He might actually have dozed off, because he wakes up when familiar chakra gets louder and louder, opens his eyes to find Tobirama standing above him. But he’s not looking at Itama, he’s staring past him at the building.

“What is this?”

Itama sits up, about to rub at his eyes until he realizes his hands are caked in dirt. Instead he just blinks extra hard and pushes himself up to sitting. “It’s a school. Elder Inoyo said the village doesn’t have the resources to let me teach, and Tsusa got mad, so I built it. Not that I think anyone’s going to _come_ , I mostly did it to prove a point.”

“To prove a point,” Tobirama echoes. “How long have you been working on this?”

“Four? Maybe five hours? I wasn’t keeping track.”

Tobirama squats down beside him and covers his face with one hand. “Why are both my brothers so absurdly powerful? How is it possible that I’m the _normal_ one in this family?”

Itama giggles and leans forward to bonk his forehead against Tobirama’s. “It wouldn’t be fair if you were absurdly powerful _and_ absurdly smart _and_ good at math. And your chakra control is really good!”

“You’re a _medic_. I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything you can’t do, baby brother.” Tobirama’s hand falls away so he can smile at Itama.

“Can’t get grownups to listen to me. Hey, Tsusa, you want to carry me?” Tsusa yawns and begins the lengthy process of getting up. “Maybe you could just tell your friends to come learn here? I mean, I guess you don’t have friends.” He slaps his hand over his mouth in horror, getting dirt all over his face, but Tobirama just looks amused.

“You’ve learned fox manners,” he says, and gets to his feet as Itama pushes himself up onto Tsusa’s back.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” says Satta, trailing after them. Itama and Tsusa both laugh.

“Only for humans.” Tobirama thinks for a moment and then amends, “Only for humans who actually care what anyone thinks of them. Orochimaru was born with fox manners and it hasn’t stopped her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orochimaru being an agricultural genetic engineer is the hill I will die on, thanks for coming to my TED talk. 
> 
> “Rokuzoku” is what people have ended up calling the Village of Six Clans because the full name is too long. It’s a ways northeast of Konoha’s canon location.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be quite honest I refuse to ever write naruto fanfiction with no pedagogical theory in it. one of the main themes of naruto is that the bonds between mentor and student, as well as the cultural and technical information passed on, are among the most important things in a society of skilled workers. anyway here's some dumb lil kids

Hashirama goes back to the Senju village, and it’s like he takes the sun with him. Itama managed to tell him a little about Ninshuu before he went, just enough that he probably thinks he understands it and doesn’t at all. He feels a bit guilty for thinking that. Two years ago he would never have had a single bad thought about his oldest brother. Hashirama was perfect. But now Itama is discontent in this village and in his skin, like a snake trying to shed his life.

But he doesn’t have room to wriggle free.

So instead he lowers his standards and his dignity and begs Kenga to bring his six-year-old niece and some of her friends to the school.

The first day it’s just Naegi and Yayoi, but they _come_. “Don’t let them get into any trouble, all right?” says Kenga. “Their parents would kill me. I have to work, but I’ll be back for them around sundown.”

“Of course, I’ll take good care of them. Thank you for your help.”

Kenga ruffles his hair and calls him a good kid and leaves.

Itama didn’t plan lunch for three people. He looks at the two little girls, who are staring at him. “Hi, I’m Itama.”

“I know,” says Yayoi. “You’re Hashirama-sama’s brother, Kenga-san told us. I’m Yayoi.”

“It’s good to meet you, Yayoi-chan. And you’re Naegi-chan, right?” Naegi nods, looking at him from under her brows. “Did Kenga-san tell you why you’re here?”

“To keep out of trouble!” says Yayoi.

“Said you’re a teacher,” Naegi mumbles.

“That’s right.” Itama carefully puts on his friendliest expression. “I’m the only human in Fire Country who can teach the things I’m going to teach you. And these are my assistants, Satta and Tsusa.”

“Pleasure to meet you!” says Satta, and leans down to lick little Yayoi’s shoulder. “I’m an assistant!”

Tsusa squints its eyes shut in exasperation. “You’ve been an assistant for over a year. Anyway, you brats better be good for Itama, or I’ll have to—”

“Tsusa,” he warns.

“I’ll have to sit on you,” it finishes, as if it was not at any point going to threaten to eat two six-year-olds. Yayoi isn’t even paying attention. She’s trying to get fox fur off her tongue after licking Satta. Itama sighs.

He ends up telling them a story, because he’s really not sure how to teach yet. It’s an edited version of his own story: “At the summit, Kyuubi-sama was so impressed with me that it decided to take me on as an apprentice. So I worked hard to make friends with all the foxes, and I told them lots of stories like I’m telling you, and Kyuubi-sama taught me how to feel what the earth and the plants and the air are doing.”

“Why?”

“Um… have you ever heard that if you want to grow rice you have to be nice to the earth, Naegi-chan?” She just tilts her head, and shifts, scrubbing her hands over Satta’s fur. “If you want the earth and the plants to give you something, like food, you have to give something back. I know how to give energy back directly. Tsusa, do you know if there are any fruit trees around here?”

Tsusa pauses and takes her foot out of her ear where she was scratching it, to gesture northward. “Not that close. Maybe a five-minute run over that way.”

“Do you want to go on a trip and see something cool, Naegi-chan? Yayoi-chan?”

It’s a small grove of plum trees, which are already beginning to lose their leaves. Itama puts a hand on the trunk of to grow a few plums, and has to grin because it really is cool, and he likes getting a reaction. The girls watch, round-eyed, as the little green balls swell and darken to purple. They don’t have the white frost of wild yeast on them because they grew so fast, so they look freshly polished. He reaches up from Tsusa’s back to pick one and offer it to Naegi, and says, “I asked the tree to grow plums, and I gave it the energy it needed from the wind and the sun.”

Yayoi accepts a plum too. “But plum trees grow plums anyway.”

“They do. But you notice they’re not growing plums right now. Trees are always getting energy from the sun, and sometimes they use it to make fruit when they have enough. Right now they’re going to sleep, so if I want them to do something I have to give them energy to do it. That’s what Ninshuu is about, figuring out where energy is and where it has to be in order to do things.”

“Are you going to teach us how to make plums?” asks Naegi suspiciously. Her entire face is already sticky with plum juice.

“If you want me to. I know your parents and Kenga-san just dropped you off here. Yayoi-chan said it was to keep you out of trouble. And I don’t want to teach anyone who’s not interested in learning. That sounds like a pain for me _and_ for you.”

Yayoi giggles at that. Like Itama, she’s probably already had enough of grown-ups talking at her when she doesn’t want to listen. “Is it hard?” she asks.

“Not for me. Maybe for you. But you don’t need to be too frustrated if it goes slowly, because it took me a year and a half to learn.” Naegi is already gone, with Satta shadowing her to make sure she doesn’t get hurt climbing a tree. “But you can go and play for now. Lessons will keep.”

And it will give Itama time to actually come up with lessons that six-year-olds can understand. If they don’t have any sensing ability, how are they going to feel the flows of energy? Can he even hope to explain the Sage of Six Paths and his teachings in a way that wouldn’t make Kyuubi-sama want to eat him?

Certainly not today. Today he has to teach two little girls to feel just the chakra in their own bodies, and keep them from running off and tripping on a snake’s den or something.

 

By sunset he’s thoroughly worn out. Yayoi asks questions without usually even pausing to hear the answers, and it’s almost impossible to keep Naegi in one place long enough to get her to _ask_ a question. The most he managed was to get them to agree that when he puts chakra into their hands it ‘feels funny.’ He’s almost hoping that they won’t want to come back tomorrow.

But when Kenga reappears and asks if they had a good time, Naegi nods and Yayoi shrieks a happy answer that makes Itama wince. They’re really worse than an entire sacred glade full of foxes.

“And how are _you_ doing?” Kenga asks, with both of them hanging off his arms. “You look…”

“I’m not used to teaching,” he says, because the girls are right there and he’s not going to say to their faces that they exhaust him. “Um, and tomorrow I’ll definitely bring a proper lunch for them. We just had plums today.”

Kenga blinks. “Where’d you get plums?”

“Itama-nii grew them!” says Yayoi. “He put his hand on the tree and WOPU, it grew plums! He says we can learn how to do that!”

Itama smiles at her, because it’s been a while since a kid thought he was cool. Unless you count the foxes, who aren’t ever kids in the human sense. “Are you going to come back tomorrow?” he asks them.

“Yeah!” Yayoi cheers. Naegi just nods.

“Well, I’ll see you then. For now I’m going to have a lie-down. Heaven, I sound like an old man.”

Kenga walks him halfway home with the girls, and then Itama and the foxes make it home. Satta somehow isn’t worn out enough, so it runs off to pester Orochimaru, wherever she is. For his part Itama very slowly transfers hot rocks from the hearth to the kotatsu and then drags himself over to lie down under it.

“You want me to start on dinner?” asks Tsusa.

“Yes please,” he mumbles. “Thank you. You’re really the best.”

“Oh, I know,” it says, and there’s a rustling of fabric that he has learned means it’s turned into a human and is haughtily flipping its hair. “Why else would Kyuubi-sama send me to watch over you?” Itama has a lot of ideas about the real reason, but he’s not going to be mean by sharing them. Instead he hums and burrows his head further into the dark cool hollow enclosed by his arms and listens to Tsusa rattling rice and banging around with pots.

Tobirama’s back before the rice is done cooking—Itama feels his chakra through the floor and looks up as the door opens. “Welcome home, Tobirama!”

He raises his eyes and smiles at the two of them tucked into the kotatsu. “Did you have a tiring day?”

“Kids,” Tsusa laments.

Tobirama snorts, and goes to check on the rice, and the thing of fish and marinade Tsusa left by the hearth. “I wish I had the time to learn from you,” he says. “There’s just so much to do.”

“I don’t know why _you_ have to do it,” Itama mutters. He’s being a bit of a hypocrite, Tobirama is two years older than him and even Itama can’t bear to sit still when he could be helping instead. “You could take a day off sometimes. They wouldn’t miss you for one day.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” says Tobirama. He lays the fish onto the griddle Tsusa heated up and it starts to spit and hiss. “It’s amazing how much they rely on a sixteen-year-old. Apparently no-one else can manage simple organization. I’m fated to be trapped as head clerk until I go gray.”

Itama laughs so hard he has to clamp his hands over his mouth, at the sly smile Tobirama gives him. “I can’t imagine _you_ with gray hair, **b** rother,” he says. “Even when you’re eighty! Senju don’t get gray hairs.”

“Nonsense,” says Tobirama. “Why, even you’re going gray! Tragically premature. It must be the stress of teaching.”

Tsusa, whose face has been squinched up in confusion, makes a round O-face as it finally gets the joke. A moment later it flips its long hair again, and it bleaches itself silver as it’s tossed over Tsusa’s shoulder. “His stress even rubs off on me,” it laments. “I didn’t have a single gray hair this afternoon!”

That actually makes Tobirama snort, and he shakes his head at Tsusa, smiling.

 

They’ve already finished dinner by the time Satta drags Orochimaru in. Itama looks up from his scroll and gives Orochimaru an unimpressed face. “You don’t need to breed rice in the dark. Why’d it take so long to get her back here, Satta?”

“She’s stubborn,” Satta sighs, flopping down by the hearth to sniff at the fish that hasn’t been eaten yet. “It’s always ‘I’m almost done with this thing!’ But then when she finishes this thing it turns out this thing includes that thing and then she has to do that thing too! Orochimaru, I’m going to eat all the food to punish you.”

“Be my guest,” says Orochimaru, turning slightly toward the door. She’s a little cranky tonight. “I’ll just leave right now and go hunting, shall I?”

“Don’t you dare, Satta,” says Itama. “Orochimaru, please sit down and eat. And anyway, you know we have snacks.”

“Hmm,” says Orochimaru. But she does sit down and eat, so that’s a win.

“Are you making any progress?” He glances at Tobirama, who’s still meditating. Good. It seems like he hasn’t even noticed Orochimaru.

“Some,” says Orochimaru shortly. “You won’t understand it, though.”

“Well, I had an all right day with Kenga-san’s niece and her friend. They chased Satta and Tsusa a lot, and they were very impressed with the fruit in winter technique.” Orochimaru glances at him, which is the most encouragement he’s going to get tonight. He sighs as quietly as possible. “I’m not really sure how much practical Ninshuu they’ll be able to learn if it turns out they’re not sensors. You’re sort of not a sensor either, what do you think?”

“Sort of not a sensor,” she repeats around a bite of rice. “You think so highly of me. It’s my opinion that anyone can learn to sense what’s immediately around them. Perhaps even non-shinobi, seeing as less internal chakra makes external chakra easier to notice. Just model it for them.”

“I was thinking of doing chakra control exercises first, so they could get used to noticing the chakra inside their bodies.”

“That seems wise. But I wouldn’t spend too much time on it. I would start on chakra molding early. It will certainly be interesting to see the differences in children who learned Ninshuu instead of ninjutsu. One day they may well surpass you.”

Itama struggles for a moment, but decides not to say anything about how much that thought sucks. “They’d better surpass me. Otherwise I’m not a very good teacher. If the first human to learn Ninshuu was the best and everyone else only got worse, that would be terrible.”

“Hmm,” hums Orochimaru, looking amused. She absolutely sees through him, at all times. It’s ceased to bother him by now. “Naturally. Maybe I’ll come and observe them sometime. I’ll be able to critique your teaching better that way.”

“Aww, you do care.”

Without looking at him Orochimaru throws one of her chopsticks like a needle, infused with enough chakra to go straight through him. He catches it between fingers reinforced with natural energy and throws it back, grinning.

All she says is, “That’s interesting. In the sacred glade it was shale. Here it looks like some kind of granite. Don’t break them off, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah Itama was trying to look cool and he turned his fingers into stone. baby.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH HEY I GUESS IT'S MONDAY. Have more kids; an excess of empathy; a timeskip; the horrors of puberty.

It takes about a week for Naegi to really get chakra molding, and another two days for Yayoi. He has them do clones, because it’s the purest expression of human chakra he can think of. They’re not _great_ clones, and they look kind of like large radish ghosts, but they’re _there_. The girls start to get bored of trying to make their clones look more human. Yayoi abandons them altogether, but Naegi dedicates herself to making a perfect illusionary radish.

Itama starts Yayoi on tree-walking.

Soon enough Naegi demands tree-walking too, quickly surpasses Yayoi, and everything ends in tears more than once. How can he teach two children with such different rates of learning without hurting anyone’s feelings?

He laments this to Orochimaru on a day off, when the girls’ mothers want them at home and Itama has the freedom to lie on the table in the greenhouse he helped Orochimaru build. “If Yayoi’s good at something, Naegi’s bad at it and she goes and gets lost. If Naegi’s good at something Yayoi gets frustrated and starts crying. And then Naegi starts crying.”

“Don’t let them do the same thing, then,” says Orochimaru. “Are you stupid? Clearly they don’t want to compare themselves. Why are you bothering me?”

“But how can I teach them two different things at the same time?”

“Alternate,” Orochimaru snaps. “Surely you have exercises that don’t need supervision. Are you trying to make _me_ teach them?”

“I wasn’t, but now that you mention it…”

She turns away from her little tray of rice seedlings to give him a sour look.

He alternates lessons.

Yayoi learns transformations and chakra circulation techniques. Naegi learns waterwalking. Itama learns how to dry his clothing quickly after getting soaked. And then when they’ve mastered those, he switches them. And they’re frustrated again, but now they’re both about the same amount of frustrated, and they want to take breaks at about the same time. Itama tells stories and shows them tricks and watches while they play with the foxes.

About a month in Orochimaru comes by and very patiently endures a lot of rude questions while she watches them struggle with sensing. She even helps teach when Itama needs to take a break from Yayoi’s constant talking. When Naegi’s mother Kukima comes to pick them up Orochimaru introduces herself as “essentially a farmer.” Itama can tell Kukima doesn’t believe it; Orochimaru is still as pale as ever and wears a kimono everywhere. But she does thank Orochimaru for helping to teach, and says that maybe now there are two teachers she’ll recommend Itama’s school to her friends.

“Please do!” says Itama, despite the fact that he isn’t sure he can _handle_ more than two kids, and despite the death glare hidden behind Orochimaru’s bland expression.

Two days later Uzumaki Ketsu and Uchiha Kaoru show up. Orochimaru does not. Itama has to resort to letting Satta and Tsusa teach the girls so he can figure out what his new students, at eight and nine years old, already know. Yayoi whines; Naegi glares sullenly at them. In desperation Itama asks if anyone knows any games, because he would really like everyone to be friends.

They end up playing shadow tag up on the hill. The foxes join in but Itama doesn’t. He has to spend his time frantically trying to think up ways to make sure no-one is jealous and everyone learns. If Orochimaru weren’t such an inconsistent jerk… Ugh. Itama knows _why_ she’s like that, but it’s so aggravating! Every time he tries to talk to her it’s basically half a chance that she’ll be nice or helpful or seem like she actually likes him… and half a chance she’ll be radiating that aura that says _I’m going to murder you as soon as you turn your back on me_.

When the kids are worn out Itama declares an early lunch and asks how Yayoi and Naegi would feel about teaching their new juniors. Naegi starts laughing delightedly, and eventually manages to say, “They’re juniors but they’re older than us!”

“They’re girls, and they’re _six_ ,” says Kaoru disdainfully.

“Do you already know how to walk on water?” asks Itama, pretending to be shocked. “You’re much more advanced than I thought.”

“No,” mutters Kaoru.

“I DO!” Yayoi stands up with her hands on her hips. “I’ll teach Kaoru to walk on water.”

“Let’s all go to the river, then,” says Itama. “Tsusa, would you be willing to supervise Yayoi’s lesson?”

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Tsusa tells Yayoi as she climbs onto its back.”

“I love you!” Yayoi tells Tsusa.

It’s all very cute, but six-year-olds are _terrible_ at teaching. In the end that day’s lesson doesn’t go well at all. Yayoi starts crying when Kaoru won’t listen to her, which sets Naegi off, and then Kaoru gets angry and embarrassed and runs away, and Ketsu just sulks the whole time. Or maybe it’s a cover for trying to fall asleep. By the end of the day Kaoru is muttering “I wish my mom didn’t make me come here!” and Ketsu isn’t even trying to pretend to pay attention. Itama sends them home guiltily hoping their parents will let them quit.

He’s too tired that night to deal with Orochimaru, so he naps until Tobirama gets home and pleads with him to come up with some kind of solution. “I don’t work much with children…” says his brother evasively.

“Please? I might die. I might actually die from how bad a time these kids are having. It’s like I feel every emotion _any_ of them is having. And I can’t help them, I’m just… Tobirama, I don’t know how to teach! I only know how to tell stories and do calligraphy!”

Tobirama abandons the vegetables he was chopping and comes to tuck himself into Itama’s side. “I don’t know how to teach either, Itama. All I know is you’ve found a way that doesn’t work. Maybe you can’t teach every child the same way and you really will have to come up with something new every time you get a new student.”

“That’s not comforting at all,” Itama complains into Tobirama’s shoulder.

“I’ve been told it’s one of my weak points.”

“At least you’re warm.”

Tobirama puts an arm around him and pulls him closer. “That I can manage.”

 

The next day Ketsu and Kaoru are back. Unfortunately. “I’m glad you decided to give us a second chance,” says Itama with a strained smile. “I’m pretty new at this, so thanks for being patient with me. We’re going to try and learn sensing today, because it’s one of the most important parts of Ninshuu.”

“Isn’t ninjutsu better?” says Kaoru. “You don’t have to learn sensing to do ninjutsu.”

“According to the gods and the Sage of Six Paths, Ninshuu is better. It’s their philosophy, and it’s the one I teach. If you don’t want to do it you can go and play instead, as long as you let Satta watch you to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Kaoru jumps up and runs off, almost before Itama has finished talking. Satta gives him a look like _can’t you make Tsusa do it?_ but it gets up too and trots off into the woods after Kaoru.

Itama sighs. He can only imagine that if Kyuubi-sama tried to teach Kaoru, he’d be eaten up within a day. “You’re fine with learning sensing, Ketsu-kun?”

“I already know sensing,” he says. “I’m an Uzumaki.”

“Oh! What can you tell us about it, then?”

Ketsu squirms. “You just kind of feel it. In here.” He pats his stomach. “Mama explained it like how you know where the sun is even with your eyes closed.”

“Um, that’s not a bad explanation. Close your eyes, everyone, and see if you can tell where my chakra is.” He’s actually a little impressed when the girls don’t try to peek. Not because they’re being good, but because they’ve figured out that watching him won’t give them any clues. He sends his chakra through the earth close by Yayoi and says, “Ketsu-kun, you should answer last, since you already know some sensing. Yayoi-chan, Naegi-chan, where do you think it is?”

Yayoi looks uncertain, but Naegi points in the general direction of it—since she hasn’t opened her eyes she hits Yayoi in the shoulder with her arm. They start fighting, and Itama pretty much ignores it because they’ve got the energy so why not let them use it. “That’s very good, Naegi-chan. Ketsu-kun, can you figure out exactly where it is?”

Ketsu eyes the girls until they sort of roll away from it, but he gets up and puts his foot on the exact spot. “You’re a natural,” Itama tells him. “Do you think you could help Naegi-chan get better at it?”

“Um,” says Ketsu, watching Naegi attempt to bite Yayoi’s hand.

“When they’re done.”

 

Kaoru actually comes out to watch them from up in a tree, though the other kids don’t notice him. Is he paying attention to the lesson at all? Itama talks a little louder, just in case.

At the end of the day when he comes down and people’s parents start to arrive, Yayoi starts yelling at him for not working because she’s tired and frustrated and Satta has to sit on her to prevent her from starting a fight. That sets off Kaoru’s older sister, who starts muttering angrily at him and apologizes to Itama for how much trouble her little brother is. Kukima pats Itama on the shoulder and says, “Sorry for all this, Itama-kun. Where is the other teacher, that pale girl?”

“She’s not actually a teacher,” says Itama, determinedly looking at Yayoi, who’s being scolded for not wearing her mittens while she makes mudpies. “She just happened to be there for the day.”

“Tsk! I’m doubly sorry, then. I hope you’re handling the four of them all right.”

“It could be worse,” says Itama. “Ketsu-kun is a good student, and I’m sure Kaoru-kun will either come around or stop coming.”

She pats him again.

 

Kaoru does, eventually, come around. It’s about the time when Yayoi is getting the hang of earth-shaping that he gets jealous and demands to learn it too.

And that’s how it is all winter. Itama finally makes a door, and the kids get really excited about how they actually know how to do that (although they couldn’t, because they don’t have enough power). Kaoru helps heat up rocks to keep the school warm, and everyone spends a day weaving blinds for the windows since rice paper is too expensive.

By the time four more students come—three Nara of various ages between seven and twelve, and Kaoru’s cousin—Itama is actually decent at teaching. It gets easier the more his students know him, and the more they understand what Ninshuu is. He’s never been prouder of anything than when Kaoru and Naegi both demand to learn healing so they can help a bird with a broken wing, early in the springtime when the snow is starting to melt.

Well, maybe he was prouder when Yamanaka Chika’s mother told him earnestly that she thought her daughter had finally learned compassion at his school. Or maybe when the Nara and Uzumaki heirs came all the way from their own villages to study with him the next summer. Or maybe the thing he’s proudest of is the thing that happens every day when Uchiha Yashiro and Senju Akage refuse to sit next to anyone but each other, when their mothers meet to pick them up and he hears them talking about who’s hosting dinner this week.

And Itama starts getting invited to those dinners. In the beginning he feels out of place, like he should be watching the kids or he should be _one_ of them, because he’s certainly not an adult. He doesn’t know enough about the economy to understand the discussions (and every time he hears the word he imagines Kyuubi-sama’s scathing delivery: **_Economy!_** ) but he does pretty well at agriculture. And he starts to realize that adults don’t really know what they’re doing any more than he does. They’ve just picked up more different kinds of stuff, but a lot of them haven’t even studied like he has. They start to look to him on questions of geology, of weather, of plant care. Sometimes he even manages to convince Orochimaru to come with him by telling her she might find a patron.

Once or twice she even does.

Orochimaru continues to be… a problem. In all the normal ways, of course—she’s haughty, rude (when she has nothing to gain from politeness), and never actually stops threatening to poison him. But much worse, she’s getting tall and beautiful. Occasionally it will catch him off guard and he’ll forget how to talk for a second because her neck is graceful or she’s looking tenderly at a snake or something horribly embarrassing like that.

He desperately hopes that he’s not as transparent to her as he usually is, because he doesn’t want her to know. He doesn’t want her to think he would dare ask her to _date_ him and then she’d look at him like an experiment she needs to throw out and start over.

Puberty is really kind of distressing all around. His voice is doing stupid things and his students laugh at him. His shoulders are getting broader so quickly that he keeps wearing out his clothing, and distressingly the ones made for him by the crane spirits no longer fit. Along with the growing he’s hungry _all the time_ in a way he hasn’t been since… since before the thing happened. And he always, generally, just feels _weird_.

 _Especially_ around Orochimaru.

Really, the last thing he needs is for absolutely anything to happen before he’s got his balance again. Which is why, one year after his return, Kyuubi-sama comes to see if he’s kept his promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real tragedy is I think Orochimaru actually does like teaching a lot, but she’s so contrary that she very rarely visits the school. Also, as a point of interest, kids do NOT learn anything besides Ninshuu at Itama’s school, such as history or writing, but Itama does encourage them to take days off to go to the temple school on the other side of town. This also means he has fewer students at a time, which is nice for him; on any particular day he usually has 12-20 students.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more pedagogy; more kyuubi; horrors of puberty, continued

It starts out as a normal day—that is, Itama chats with his students’ parents and siblings while Tsusa and Satta try to count and herd the children themselves. He has just a couple more minutes to be a friend rather than a teacher, and he’s going to savor them. But when his last student (as usual it’s Nara Mitsue) finally makes it up the path, he concedes defeat and calls for everyone to gather around. “Does everyone remember what they were working on last time?” he asks. Mostly nods, and a few uncertain looks. “As always, feel free to come to me for suggestions. Today Shikara-san and Satta are continuing their lessons on yin chakra manipulation, Nadare-chan has beginner chakra molding, and I’m going to be doing natural energy with Naegi-chan as my assistant. Does anyone else have something they want to teach?”

“Does, um, does anyone not know sensing yet?” asks Ketsu. A few replies, and some of the newer kids start pushing toward him.

“I was thinking of doing ecology,” says his single clanless student, Watanuki Kazuhito. “Farming and life cycles and that. I would involve catching frogs, if that sweetens the deal.”

It does sweeten the deal apparently, because there’s a cheer from the Yamanaka cousins, and Naegi looks like she regrets volunteering to help Itama with his lesson. “You can go with them,” he tells her. “It’s not like I can’t handle it on my own.”

Naegi sighs loudly. “Not like I can’t catch frogs when I’m not at school.”

“Right,” says Itama, and then for everyone to hear: “Go on and start what you’re doing! And _please_ make sure you don’t get too far away from a teacher or a fox, because I don’t think anyone enjoys getting lost.”

Children scatter in all directions, and when the dust settles Itama finds himself with mostly the same students he had yesterday, and one little boy who hasn’t been coming for long. “Chusuke-kun, right?” The boy nods. “I’m not going to tell you not to take my lesson, but I don’t know how much of it you’ll be able to understand, since you’ve only been molding chakra for a couple weeks. Feel free to get up and go with Nadare-chan if you get too bored. You know which one she is?”

“Yep!” Chusuke chirps. He’s a very cute kid.

“All right, so yesterday we talked about how natural energy gets made. I’d like you all to try and remember a couple places or processes where that happens, and then we can go on to—ah—”

He turns his head sharply toward the hill, but they’re inside so he can’t see anything. “Tsusa. Tsusa! I need you over here!”

 **No need** , says Kyuubi-sama's harmonic, earth-shaking voice. All over the clearing children stop and look up, and up. At the open door of the school building Kyuubi-sama’s snout condenses like a sudden fog, and it hooks its teeth gently in the collar of Itama’s coat to drag him outside and seat him on one of the flat-topped stone lanterns. **You have been busy, runt. I half-expected you to forget your promise.**

“I’d never!”

Kyuubi-sama snorts, amused, and then carefully curls itself all the way around the school building to lie on the ground. **Nevertheless. One has to check.**

Itama takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Nobody is screaming yet, which is a plus. They’ve all heard the story of how Kyuubi-sama became Itama’s teacher, and they’ve seen the smaller foxes, so it’s not _completely_ unexpected. But they look afraid. So he puts on his teacher voice and says, “Since we have your attention, everyone, I might as well introduce Kyuubi-sama, my god and my teacher. As you know, I promised to teach Ninshuu to humans, and Kyuubi-sama has come to make sure I kept that promise.” He turns to Kyuubi-sama and says more quietly, “What does that involve? I hope you’re not going to go straight back now that you’ve seen the school.”

 **You’ve grown no more intelligent, I see** , it says pleasantly. **I will talk to your students to see what it is they’re learning from you.**

“Um, right. Anyone who wants to talk to Kyuubi-sama?”

About half of the students start running straight for Kyuubi-sama, and the other half look like they want nothing to do with it, crowding around the older students for safety. Everyone Itama was about to start teaching— _and_ his assistant—are in the running-toward-the-god camp, aside from little Chusuke. He comes out of the building and hides behind Itama, peeking around his back as Kyuubi-sama receives the other students.

Kyuubi-sama bares its teeth at the students around it. It’s pretending it doesn’t know how to smile properly, but actually it just wants to scare them. Itama makes a quiet fart noise with his mouth and crosses his arms, briefly surprised by how long they are. He’s pretty sure he didn’t used to have noticeable muscles from hauling himself on and off of foxes all day…?

“Is the fox going to hurt us, Sensei?” whispers Chusuke, tugging on the hem of his coat.

“Absolutely not,” says Itama. He glances over at Kyuubi-sama, who is rumbling words just quiet enough that he can’t understand them, and leans down a little from his perch to put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Kyuubi-sama likes me and my friends. And if it tries to hurt us, I’ll stop it. Have you seen my shielding?”

Chusuke shakes his head, so Itama carefully mixes natural energy into his own chakra (it’s harder when he’s not touching the ground) and projects a shield in front of him. He makes sure it glows a little with stolen sunlight so it looks as impressive as a magical shield should, and he says, “Go on, try and get through it.”

Chusuke pushes from the inside, hard. He seems encouraged when the shield doesn’t even move, and more children drift over to take shelter behind it. Itama laughs softly as he dissolves it. “I’m taking it down for now because it takes a lot of energy, but I’ll put it back up to protect you if I sense even the tiniest bit of danger. My reflexes are very good, you know.”

“How do you make the shield, Sensei?” asks Tenri. “Shouldn’t we learn to do that too?”

“I hope you all learn to do it. But it needs natural energy to work, so unless you’re up to the level of mixing natural energy with your chakra, it isn’t a good idea to try. Have I told you all about the time I turned my legs to stone?”

“Is that why they don’t work?” asks someone.

“Ah, no, they already didn’t. That just made it harder to notice that I was mixing my chakra wrong there! You see, if you have more natural energy in your body than yin or yang chakra, you start to become one with nature. That sounds nice when I say it that way, but actually you start turning to stone! But don’t worry, as long as your heart is still human you can always turn back, if you don’t panic. That’s why it’s only for high-level students who are very good at meditating. It takes a lot of concentration.”

“Scaryyy,” mutters Ino.

“Well, all power is scary,” says Itama good-naturedly. “You just have to make sure you’re in control. Now, are you all too scared to keep having your lessons, or do you want to meet Kyuubi-sama, or what?”

“I’m fine to keep teaching,” says Nadare. “But Sensei, maybe we could have the lesson next to you so everyone would feel safer.” Itama nods, and everyone mysteriously seems to decide that they need beginner chakra molding lessons, even those who have been at his school for almost a year.

He turns his attention back to Kyuubi-sama, since he’s supposedly defending everyone from it. Chika and her little gang are using its tails as a slide while Shikara and Mitsue and Kaoru talk to it from up on the roof. It’s probably going to be fine.

Oh! Familiar chakra. He looks around to see Orochimaru eying Kyuubi-sama from behind a tree, and waves her over. She flickers to his side, briefly alarming some of the students clustered around the lantern. “What are you doing here?”

“Historically, Kyuubi-sama’s reasons for showing up here are less than pure,” she says softly.

“First of all, that was one time. Second, come on, were you _really_ planning on fighting a god? I can take care of myself.”

“But you don’t,” she snaps. “You’re not wary of those you consider friends.”

“You say that like it’s a character flaw. But it’s not, Orochimaru. It just means I don’t live in constant paranoia!” He glances at Nadare’s group, who haven’t yet noticed the whispered argument, and lowers his voice even further. “It’s been three years, and you still can’t trust _anyone_?”

She scoffs. “You’re making the assumption that before my home burned to the ground I did trust anyone.”

“Now you’re just _lying_. I know you trusted your aunt.”

“I think you know very well that family is different,” she says. She’s beginning to look murderous. Normally this is the point where Itama would back down, but today he _can’t_. He’s too angry at how ridiculous she’s being.

“So you don’t trust me? Or Tobirama? Even your snakes? You have to draw the line somewhere, and I’m waiting with bated breath to see where that is, Orochimaru. Pretending you hate everyone stopped being cute around the time you told me you’d kill me to satisfy your pride. You can’t do that and then turn around and say Kyuubi-sama is the biggest threat to me! And then—and then say you don’t trust me anyway! I’ve known you for three years and I’m still not sure if you would rather I was dead!”

Orochimaru’s jaw clenches, and she’s silent for a long time. Finally she says, still in that low dangerous tone, “I wouldn’t rather you were dead. In fact, I am trying to protect you. If it will satisfy you to hear it, I do trust you. With my life.”

“W-well. Good.” Itama feels like he’s just fallen, like Tsusa missed a step, like he forgot how long his arms are and hit himself in the face. His heart is still pounding, not yet ready to be calm. He wasn’t _expecting_ her to just admit it. “Uh, me too. But you could stand to act like it a little more.”

“You make it sound simple,” she says. She still hasn’t dropped the voice that makes it sound like she’s planning his death. Maybe the only way she can say something that isn’t rude is by tricking herself into thinking it actually is rude. And she won’t look at him—her eyes lowered, showing only her smoky purple eyelids and long lashes, her hair falling over one shoulder where she keeps pushing it while she’s distracted—

Oh, hell. This is such an inappropriate time to be thinking about how pretty she is, with her having a crisis and trying to pretend she isn’t and she’s waiting for Itama to give her some kind of advice. “Uhhh,” he says. She looks up, and his stomach does a weird swoopy thing. “You can try saying nice things?” His voice cracks embarrassingly. “Like ‘I’m glad you’re okay’ or ‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’  And _not_ threatening to poison people you like. That’s a big way people can tell you don’t like them, if you threaten to poison them. The murder face is also kind of…”

“The murder face.”

“Yes, that one, that you’re doing right now. The one where it looks like you’re going to murder me.”

“That’s just what my face looks like.”

“No it’s not! Usually when you’re reading or talking to someone else you look calm and totally not murderous!”

“Maybe it’s just what my face looks like when I’m talking to you.”

He scowls at her, because now he knows she’s laughing at him. “Well—well—ugh.” He turns away to watch Nadare’s class slowly one-by-one drifting away toward Kyuubi-sama, finally more curious than they are afraid. “Maybe I get the wrong idea from the murder face, considering you’ve basically said you don’t want to murder me. Just a thought.”

“I’ll do my best,” says Orochimaru. She sounds like she’s being sarcastic, but she’s not.

So he gives her a warm smile and says, “That’s all I can ask. Thank you, Orochimaru.”

She looks away. When she next speaks she sounds… upset? “I might as well talk to Kyuubi-sama, since it’s here. Excuse me.”

As he watches her walk away he barely avoids thinking about the actual shape of her body under her loose clothing… wait, dammit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orochimaru is about two years older than Itama (~17), and reached puberty a while ago. She underknows. Ahhh if he could stand he’d be taller than her, but as it is he’s usually sitting on a giant fox and is taller than almost everyone. Cute.
> 
> (I have never actually experienced human puberty, but the rumors I have heard suggest that you start to think about sex? Let me know if this is inaccurate, I did barely any research.)


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Itama receives... a mission?? also sorry I'm late I spent most of yesterday in like a fugue state or something

Nothing gets done that day in school, because eventually everyone overcomes their fear of Kyuubi-sama and its retinue to climb up onto its flank and ask it incessant questions. Itama uses the time to talk to Chuyo and Shisura. He has news about the school and the village, and they have silly fox gossip that he missed more than he realized. They even brought some flower wine, which he has _definitely_ realized how much he missed—he should get the recipe from them before they go. Some of his older students get some, and Orochimaru, and Tobirama when he warily shows up as well to defend Itama from Kyuubi-sama.

Everyone he knows is such a worrywart.

He waits to introduce Tobirama until after the kids have finally gone home. Itama makes Kyuubi-sama go away or invisible or whatever exactly it is that Kyuubi-sama does, because he doesn’t want everyone’s parents to think their kids are going to get eaten by a fox bigger than the school building. It materializes again when everyone is gone and sits up alertly next to the path.

**Ah, the famous Tobirama, one must assume.**

“Pleased to meet you,” says Tobirama stiffly, and bows. “Thank you for taking care of my brother.”

Kyuubi-sama laughs like it knows that’s nowhere near what he wanted to say. **The runt is his own reward. You should thank me for taking care of your snake.**

“So rude,” murmurs Orochimaru, but loudly so everyone down on the ground can hear. She’s leaning against Kyuubi-sama’s neck to comb the fur there with her fingers—she missed Kyuubi-sama too. “Well, are you satisfied with our progress? Do we escape the jaws of vengeance?”

**I wasn’t going to eat you, little snake. But you’re doing well in any case. Your students do seem to grasp something of the essence of Ninshuu. Some of them very young.**

“I think the younger kids understand Ninshuu better, sometimes,” Itama offers. “It really is a philosophy that makes sense down in your soul, even before you know anything.” One of Kyuubi-sama’s tails almost pushes him over where he’s sitting near its forearms, which is a sort of laughter.

 **But that isn’t the only reason I came here. Since humans are your domain, I thought you might want to hear the news.** Itama straightens up, suddenly anxious to hear. He can see Orochimaru’s hands go still on Kyuubi-sama’s neck. **I’ve been told that three clans in the northeast, past the mountains, have banded together for the purpose of capturing my sibling, Nibi.**

“What? Why? Is Nibi-sama all right?”

Kyuubi-sama lifts one hand in gently presses Itama backward into its side, as if he was about to get up and run to Lightning Country. **She’s fine. I may be the most powerful of us, but she’s not defenseless. You _do_ know she’s a god of death, runt.**

“I don’t trust humans not to find some way to do something horrible to her,” says Itama, folding his arms and frowning to hide how comforting it is to lean close against Kyuubi-sama’s warm side. “Someone ought to talk to them.”

“And I suppose you think that someone is you?” says Orochimaru, looking down her nose at him from one storey up.

“Who else? You know I’m the strongest in Ninshuu, and I’m already a diplomat—”

“It _doesn’t_ have to be you,” says Tobirama in a low voice. When Itama looks at him he has a really intense expression, almost pleading. His brother is really scared for him.

“Tobirama, tell me who else could do it. Who else is the student of a god? Who else is a sage _and_ a diplomat?”

“You’ve already done so much. You don’t need to do everything. This may even resolve itself without your interference.”

“And if it doesn’t, Tobirama? What if I wait until I hear more news, and the news is that Nibi-sama was, was _captured_ or something? I’ll have let her get hurt when I could stop it! This isn’t something humans should even _want_ to do. They’re wrong. They’re… they’re… something is wrong with them! They’re unbalancing it!” He scrubs at his eyes, angry that he can’t find the right words. Now that he knows, it’s like he can feel their malice all the way from Lightning Country. Like a festering wound that won’t get better unless the infection is purged.

Tobirama encloses him in his arms, murmuring, “I don’t want to lose you. I spent over a year thinking you were dead. I only have two brothers, you know.”

Itama shoves his face into Tobirama’s shoulder and grips his sleeve. “Then come with me. We’ll face them together. This time you have to come, because you can’t stop me from going.”

“We’re needed here,” Tobirama whispers. But Itama can already hear the concession in his voice.

“Thank you, Brother. Thank you.”

 **My student has learned well** , says Kyuubi-sama above them, sounding very satisfied. **No true sage can let imbalance stand. Chuyo, you’ll go with them. Your healing ability and illusions should prove useful. And our snake will be wanting to go too, won’t she?**

“Someone’s got to make sure the Senju don’t do anything stupid,” says Orochimaru, tossing her hair over her shoulder again. “Such as leaving without telling anyone. Failing to make arrangements for the school. Not that I care, but I assume your _other_ brother won’t like this any better than Tobirama does.”

Hashirama.

Itama feels briefly but acutely guilty that Orochimaru, and not Hashirama’s brothers, was the one to think of him.

Kyuubi-sama begins to rise, making Itama sit up straight, tipping Orochimaru off its shoulders and onto the roof of the school. **Yarera. You too. I’ll leave you to make sure they don’t get themselves killed. And no dawdling when you’re done.**

“Yes, Kyuubi-sama,” says Yarera from wherever it is. Foxes are sort of draped all over everywhere at this point.

**Come on, you rabble. We’ve got things to do. Itama. Go well.**

Kyuubi-sama vanishes into the air, and all the foxes but four stand up and start streaming around the hill like a red and silver river, away to the northeast. “Bye, Itama!” some of them call out. “Bye, Orochimaru! See you later!”

 

If anything, Hashirama is even less happy with the plan than Tobirama was. “I can’t just leave the clan to make sure you don’t get hurt! I’m the clan _head_. I could order you not to go, you know.”

Itama raises his eyebrows sorrowfully: _really?_ “I respect you a lot as my clan head, Brother, but this is something I have to do. Orders from gods are a little more important.” Not that Kyuubi-sama ordered him to do anything, but that’s not worth mentioning. It might as well have.

“I’m going to _strangle_ you,” says Hashirama crossly. “You don’t have to do everything yourself.”

"No-one else is going to do it. No-one else _can_ do it. Please, brother. I’d rather have your blessing and your help than have to sneak away. You can’t hold me here.” And that is sweet to realize. Three years ago he couldn’t even leave his house without one of his brothers carrying him. Now there is no bond on earth that can hold him. He smiles a little at Hashirama. “If you want you can fight me. I’ll prove how strong I am. It might make you feel a little better about letting me go.”

“Ohhh!” Hashirama makes a frustrated noise and lunges forward to hug Itama. “I’m always so surprised by you growing up, even when I shouldn’t be! You’ll always be my little brother, and I’ll always want to keep you safe…” He tugs on Itama’s ponytail and turns his head to lay his cheek on Itama’s shoulder. “You’d better not get hurt. Then you’re really gonna get it, little brother. Go save the world and then come back home and tell me all about it over tea.”

“Love you,” whispers Itama.

“Tobirama, get in here! Family hug!” Once Tobirama has been captured, Hashirama smiles and kisses him loudly on the head (“ugh,” says Tobirama tonelessly). “I can send extra people with you, to guard you. Just to make sure.”

Itama shakes his head against Hashirama’s shoulder. “We can’t take anyone who uses ninjutsu, or who doesn’t know Ninshuu. Really, Brother, I’ll be fine. Let me prove it to you.”

“Well, how can I say no to a contest of skill against my favorite little brother! This is going to be fun!”

Tobirama makes a discontented noise at being the least favorite little brother, but Hashirama has already run off, chattering about good places to have the contest.

“Don’t worry,” Itama says. “I’m only his favorite when I agree to fight him.”

“Hm,” says Tobirama.

They follow their brother to a field a ways outside of town; Itama thinks of Hashirama’s destructive potential and remembers the natural cycle of wildfires that is about to happen to the grass at his brother’s hand. Figuratively speaking?

“You good to be my battle steed?” he asks Tsusa. It twists its head around just enough that he can see its teeth, bared in the approximation of a smile it’s been working on. Mostly it just looks ready to kill. “If we get separated, don’t attack Hashirama. I’ll defend to buy time, and you come back to me. I’m not sure your idea of playfighting wouldn’t… uh, maim him.”

Tsusa cackles its yipping cackle and doesn’t reply, just starts circling Hashirama. He turns to follow with his eyes. Itama’s waiting until he makes his move, because in real life he will never start a fight. He only finishes them.

Or would, theoretically, if anyone had ever started a fight with him.

Suddenly Hashirama is crouched, hands pressed to the ground—Tsusa dodges the grasping branches that move like some nightmare horror, as new trees chase them in a wide circle around him. “I’m leaning right,” says Itama, and Tsusa gets low and balances him so he can get a hand on the ground. He makes a scooping motion with his hand and with his chakra, raising a dome of solid earth around his brother. He gathers natural energy as Tsusa leaps for it, so that he only has to brush his hand against it to reinforce it, rewriting the paths of the energy flowing between the grasses.

They wheel away to watch from a distance as tremors shake the dome—Hashirama is using earth release in there, but it can’t quite overcome Itama’s reinforcement. So he changes tack and roots erupt from the ground around it, fighting fire with fire, and it crumbles. Hashirama, when he emerges, is grinning fiercely. “Oh, it is _on_ , little brother!”

He makes a quick series of hand seals and then a small pond comes pouring out his mouth. Tsusa leaps into the air (“What! I didn’t know you could do that!” cries Hashirama) and Itama laughs down at him. “You’re not even in my league,” he calls. “Nothing you do can hurt me!”

“Oh yeah? Try this!” Hashirama slams his hands down on the ground again, this time to make a pillar that shoots him up to their height. The ground around it gouges out a moat that the water flows into—it soaks in unnaturally fast, and Itama would bet that’s some kind of mud trap. Meanwhile Hashirama is leaping toward Tsusa, and when he misses he catches its back foot with a lasso of water. Tsusa snarls and tries to turn around, but its concentration is broken and they start to fall out of the air. Itama’s not sure it can make a good landing with him on its back, so he pushes himself off and gathers the chakra to soften the earth as he lands on it. No sooner has he sat back up than Hashirama is almost on him, over him with a knife drawn, silhouetted against the sky as a black shape with no face.

It’s—it’s not—but it’s a reflex for Itama to throw out his arm and snap a shield of natural energy in front of him, shoving the attacker away hard.

It’s quiet for a moment except for his own ragged breathing.

He opens his eyes, slowly lowering his arm, and sees a figure sprawled on the ground ten meters away. His brother, just his brother. Just Hashirama.

Before Hashirama can sit up and see, Itama pulls his sleeve back over his right hand and starts pouring his own chakra in until he can move his fingers again.

Behind him Tsusa’s tail flicks at his shoulder, and he pulls himself up onto its back as Hashirama is getting up. “Yield?” he calls, hoping they can end it here. If Hashirama gets close, Itama is afraid he might really hurt his older brother, and he’s so tired suddenly. But if he shows it he might not be allowed to go.

“Right,” says Hashirama, a little dazed. “I yield. That was some defense, little brother!”

“I did tell you you wouldn’t be able to hurt me,” says Itama. He now knows it’s a lie. “Do you believe me that no-one in Lightning Country will be able to either? I’ll have Tobirama and Orochimaru, too.”

As he says that, he realizes he can feel Orochimaru’s chakra quite close. At some point during the fight she appeared from somewhere to stand at Tobirama’s side with crossed arms. The two of them probably did see his mistake, but as long as they don’t say anything…

“If nothing else, I know you’ll be able to get away. Tsusa-san has quite the turn of speed! And you can _fly_?”

“A wise fox never reveals all its secrets,” says Tsusa, squinting its eyes shut.

“I’ll let you go, baby brother, but I won’t like it. You’d better send letters so I know you’re all right.”

“How? It’s not like we’re going to be able to keep hawks, and no-one here can summon Orochimaru’s snakes if they carry a letter.”

“Think of something,” says Hashirama. He’s wearing his stubborn face.

“I’ll do my best,” Itama sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This maneuver of Kurama’s kind of reminds me of the concept of gods acting through human or demigod heroes so as not to horn in on each other’s territory. You can imagine how Matatabi would take it if Kurama went himself to punish the wicked; and like he said, this is a _human_ matter. It’s Itama’s job to fix humanity, no matter how unfair that is.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: itama has one (1) spicy thought about orochimaru while she's wearing wet clothes and then dies. other content warning: itama was doing so good it's been months since he had a flashback but honestly? gyuuki Looks Like That

On the morning they set off, Itama is already aching. Takema told him this happens because he’s growing too fast for his own body. When he calls a break to concentrate and heal it, just like every other time, he can’t figure out anything that’s actually wrong with him. It’s frustrating, because it means he can’t fix it. It does go away after a while, but he doesn’t like that he can’t control it. His body is just making fun of him.

But travelling by fox is _so_ much better than travelling in the cart Orochimaru made him. It was always awkward to use the staves and after about an hour his arms would start to ache. His back hurts a little from sitting up straight, but nothing worse. Though if he could feel his butt it would probably be awful.

It only takes them two days to get to the Akimichi village in the foothills of the North Mountains. Since they sent a hawk ahead everyone is already excited to see them, and some of Itama’s Yamanaka friends have come down the mountain to visit, even! “Man,” says Tomura, “I heard about the foxes, but the rumors didn’t really do them justice. Nice, uh, nice to meet you.”

“Polite,” says Chuyo, squinting its eyes shut in satisfaction. “I’m Chuyo.”

He looks startled to hear Chuyo talk, but he bows anyway, and puts his hand on his little sister’s head to make her bow too. “I’m Tomura, and this is Ami.”

Itama smiles to see them making small talk. If there was any clan that would assume a fox you don’t know might be a person, it would have to be the Yamanaka. By the end of a long, drawn-out dinner, Satta and Yarera are giving rides to the children, but only on the condition that they memorize and recite a poem about how cool foxes are. It’s just… really good to see them getting along with humans who aren’t afraid of them.

It ends up taking another two days to get to the Nara village on the other side of the mountains, because so many Akimichi and Yamanaka want to walk along with them as an honor guard. Itama can’t bring himself to mind too much, even though there’s a worry in the back of his mind about getting to Lightning Country too late. The kids _are_ awfully cute, and Chuyo has assured him that a day or two isn’t going to make that much difference. It’s going to be a long hunt, it says.

The Nara village is all black. Black gravel in the streets, buildings painted black. Even the rock here seems darker than on the other side of the mountains. Luckily the houses are _not_ black inside, or Itama would have to wonder how everyone stays sane. They’re a lot more reserved than the other two clans, but they’re kind, and eager to hear Itama’s stories. And they’re generous with travel supplies.

They don’t actually have a map of anything past the Fire Country border, but according to Yarera they have a ways to go yet. Itama isn’t really clear on whether there’s something between Fire Country and Lightning Country, but he’s content enough to find hot springs bubbling up everywhere. They don’t have anything like that back home—public baths, yes, but not _natural_ baths. It’s wonderful after sitting on foxback for so long, and the foxes are equally delighted… but Tobirama and Orochimaru are both reluctant. He knows why Tobirama wouldn’t want anyone to see him naked, but he’s surprised that Orochimaru is even capable of being embarrassed. She actually turns a delicate shade of pink and gives him the murder face and says, “Drop the subject. Isn’t it polite to let ladies go first?”

He raises his hands in surrender and takes himself a ways away to start on dinner. “I hope at least you’ll come with me,” he says to Tobirama. “It’s no fun taking a bath alone.” Tobirama just hums and doesn’t look up from the taro root he’s cutting. “I’ve never seen Orochimaru blush before. I didn’t think she could.” It was really cute, unfortunately. And in retrospect it’s probably for the best that he _doesn’t_ take a bath with Orochimaru. He’d only embarrass himself.

“She’ll be pleased to know you haven’t figured it out,” says Tobirama absently. He doesn’t even _notice_ Itama’s beseeching look, which is very cruel of him.

“Figured what out?”

“Not my secret to tell. Ask her yourself.”

“She’d kill me! How did you get her to tell you without killing you?”

“I gave up a secret in exchange. She likes to keep the balance of power.”

Itama thinks about that for a while. “She only likes it when it’s in her favor. It’s her whole thing.”

“Well, then, maybe you’ll need to give her two secrets.”

“You’re no help at all.”

Tobirama, the worst brother ever, doesn’t reply. He just scoops the taro he was cutting into their freshly-fired cooking pan and starts on another one. Itama cuts dried meat in silence, wondering what kind of secrets she could even _have_ , until she comes back.

She sort of melts out of the forest into the firelight, with her earrings out and just the tips of her hair wet and her clothing clinging to her. Oh no. _Oh no_. She crouches down by Itama to look at the progress of the soup, and he sort of forgets how to talk. Or move. Or breathe. “Uh,” he says.

She turns toward him and raises an eyebrow. He’s probably going to die of her, if she doesn’t kill him first.

 

They only spend two days with the hot springs. Sometimes it’s bad that the foxes can run so fast…but then again, it means they don’t have to spend much time in the high mountains where it is very much already winter. Itama wishes the hunters in Lightning Country would have the politeness to hunt gods in the summertime instead, but he must suppose that if they were polite they wouldn’t be hunting gods at all.

On the eighth day Yarera announces that they’re getting close. When they take a break for food Itama sinks into the natural energy to try to get a feel for the land, and he feels a huge chakra that, like Kyuubi-sama, blends in very well. It doesn’t feel like a god of death, though. When he opens his eyes again Orochimaru and Tobirama are exchanging a Look that makes it clear they’ve felt it too. “It’s not Nibi-sama,” he says.

“How many gods are there in Lightning Country?” Tobirama asks Chuyo, whose side he’s leaning against (supposedly for warmth, but come on).

“Never more than three at once. It may be large, but gods need large territories. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you who they are, never having been a spy myself.” It squints its eyes in Yarera’s direction, and Yarera tips its nose dramatically into the air, tail brushing furiously over the ground.

“Nothing wrong with being a spy,” says Yarera. “The one nearby is Hachibi-sama. It’s possible that if we ask nicely we can get shelter there. Hachibi-sama is a lot friendlier than Nibi-sama.”

“And it’s a good idea to talk to the god whose territory you’re travelling through,” adds Tsusa. “For permission.”

“If you’ve been here before,” says Itama, “have you talked to Hachibi-sama, then?”

“ _Spy_ ,” says Yarera, exasperated. The other foxes laugh.

When they get further north Yarera directs them toward a huge lake ringed by mountains. It’s saturated with Hachibi-sama’s chakra, and way out in the middle Itama can see an island. “Should we go out there?” he asks. “It seems rude, if that’s their equivalent of the sacred glade. But I don’t know if they’ll notice us.”

“They’ll notice us,” says Tsusa. “We all reek of Kyuubi-sama, except Big Brother.” Tobirama is wrinkling his nose when Itama glances at him. He’s been trying to get Tsusa to use his actual name as long as he’s known it, and never succeeded yet.

They end up making camp on the shore, and the foxes can’t resist getting a little drunk on flower wine, stoking the fire higher and higher, until Orochimaru threatens to knock them out so she can get some sleep. Nobody gets much sleep, though, because when the Hachibi shows up it’s several hours before dawn.

Itama jerks into wakefulness with his heart racing, and before he’s even fully conscious he realizes it’s because the air is heavy with powerful chakra. Above him, blotting out the moon and stars, is a massive horned head.

**Oho, what’s this? Has my eldest sibling sent something?**

“Whuh?” says Itama.

**Now, you’re human. Kyuubi of all people I’d not expect to send humans.**

“We were advised that it would be polite to ask your permission to continue travelling in your territory,” says Orochimaru’s voice. She sounds totally awake, which isn’t fair. “We don’t have a gift, but we might be able to come up with something. We’re here about Nibi-sama’s human problem.”

Hachibi-sama laughs so loud it echoes off the mountains, leaving Itama’s ears ringing. **They are rather pests, aren’t they? Still, Nibi won’t thank you for doing so without her leave.**

“Um,” says Itama. Two round glowing eyes turn on him, and he trembles a little. “I’m a, a diplomat. I think other humans would be more willing to negotiate with me, especially if Nibi-sama, um. Well, I want to, uh, make humans accept the gods and coexist with them. Ninshuu. We’re hoping nobody will have to die this way.”

 **Hmm** , says Hachibi-sama. **That isn’t a bad goal. You’re not half bad, for a human.**

“We were also told that you might be kind enough to shelter us,” says Orochimaru. “As the most welcoming of the gods.”

 **Oho!** Hachibi-sama laughs again, and Itama winces. **I am not so ingracious as to turn away someone asking for my hospitality, though it happens seldom enough these days. Come, my grove is on the lake.**

Everyone hurriedly gets up and starts packing up all the sleeping gear—even the foxes take human form to get it done more quickly. Except Chuyo, who is of course too dignified. As he starts rolling up his bedroll Itama asks, “Was there a time when a lot of people asked for your hospitality?”

 **There never was** , it says, and turns its face up toward the sky. **But lately humans have been even less trusting. More apt to kill first and then ask what they killed. More than a few of my cows and bulls have gone missing. I don’t seek revenge but it has a way of making one tired.**

It doesn’t seek revenge? That would be the first thing Kyuubi-sama would do. Well. It _is_ a god of vengeance, but Itama never imagined it would be so different from its siblings. “We’ll talk to them too. They probably just don’t know.”

Hachibi-sama sighs, sending large ripples out over the lake. **Perhaps. Are you ready?**

The packing is finished, so Itama gets up onto Chuyo’s back and they all walk across the lake. Well, Hachibi-sama doesn’t, it slides down into the water and kind of drifts across with only its head and shoulders visible. Now that it’s closer to eye level, Itama can see that it has four horns, unlike any bull he’s ever seen, and the texture of its skin looks like raw muscle. It makes him a little uneasy to look at—he’s never much enjoyed skinning game, and even less so since the, uh, accident. The on-purpose.

He needs to stop thinking about it.

He can’t stop thinking about it because he just keeps seeing flayed muscle, still warm and alive. They didn’t even _do_ that to him, but it reminds him of the people Kyuubi-sama made him watch. He bends down and lays his forehead on the back of Chuyo’s head; its ears swivel around toward him, questioning. “It’s nothing,” he murmurs. Chuyo’s fur and skin peel back under his hands as if he’s flaying it himself, just by touching it, and he can smell blood, and it’s twitching, and he shoves himself off its back because maybe if he leaves this will stop happening and

lands in the cold water, gasping, and starts to sink. He’s still for a moment, gaping up at Chuyo, whose fur is still whole and silver. He _knows_ how to water-walk, he’s taught dozens of kids. Chakra to his palms to push himself above the surface of the water, but he can’t channel chakra to his legs in order to sit on top of it.

Chuyo crouches, and he pulls himself back up. Way to make a good first impression, Itama. You’re a natural diplomat. There’s no _way_ Hachibi-sama won’t trust you now.

He glares at the water in front of Chuyo as it walks, until Tobirama appears by their side. He doesn’t say anything, but offers a hand. This time Itama manages not to imagine the twitching muscle under his skin, and takes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trans Tobirama #confirmed. Also thinking about it I realize that there’s no actual reason to assume the bijuu given to Lightning Country by Hashirama would necessarily be the bijuu who lived there before being sealed. But I am making that assumption anyway because I just feel the character of the land matches the character of the bijuu.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Itama is a teen now!! He gets to make inadvisable and dangerous decisions out of adrenaline-fueled anxiety, without consulting anyone!! Nothing bad happens in this chapter except that several people are rude to Itama.

The oxen on the sacred island sort of drift around after them curiously, but none really try to make conversation. Hachibi-sama has disappeared into the lake, leaving the diplomatic party to explore the island on their own. The only time any of the oxen talked to them is when Tobirama asked if they could have some of the fruit that grows here. It was a massive old cow who said, “What’s ours is yours as long as you are a guest of Hachibi-sama.”

They wander around until midmorning, when Hachibi-sama surfaces and asks to see what they know of Ninshuu.

 **My sibling taught you well** , it says, leaning with its arms folded on the beach the same way Itama would lean on a table. **But even Kyuubi doesn’t teach everything it knows. Your technique for creating sage chakra could use some improvement.**

“What do you mean?” asks Itama.

 **You are not becoming the natural world, simply welcoming it into yourself. Watch.** It closes its glowing eyes—its chakra shifts—and it begins to dissolve into the water.

“Kyuubi-sama could do that too,” says Tobirama, watching with sharp eyes. “It liked to use that technique for sneaking around where it shouldn’t be.”

When Hachibi-sama speaks, the voice seems to come from the air itself. **I might argue that there is nowhere a god shouldn’t be. You are the ones who live on Kyuubi’s territory. We were here before you.**

“Not necessarily,” says Orochimaru, as Hachibi-sama starts to fade back into sight and its chakra gathers together. “There were humans before you were born. The Sage’s father was one of them. It is quite possible that, for example, Itama’s detestable clan has occupied that land since before Kyuubi-sama came there.”

Hachibi-sama laughs its ear-splitting laugh again. **Well noted. But Ashura’s line did not originate in your land. Kyuubi was there first.** Its eyes curve in a smile and it leans down. **I suppose that makes you two my nephews.**

Itama stares up at it, lost for words, and beside him Tobirama is doing the same. Only Orochimaru seems to have command of her tongue. “Family pedigree aside, are you going to teach us that technique?

**Ha! Very well. You must understand how to maintain a balance of chakra outside your body.**

 

The lesson takes all day, and they forget to eat until after sundown, and somehow Tobirama gets it first even though he’s the only one who has never used sage chakra. Itama collapses into sleep with his head still full of energy flows and balances.

When he wakes, groggy, midmorning, Tobirama is walking around quietly packing fruit and root vegetables.

“G’morning,” he says; sits up, rubbing his eyes.

“We should leave today,” says Tobirama. “As much as I’m sure we all enjoy Hachibi-sama’s lessons, we don’t have time to dawdle here. Not only will our brother be getting impatient, but there is a slim chance that a god’s life depends on us.”

“Mm,” says Itama. “Guess you’re right. Stop being a morning person, it makes me feel bad.”

Tobirama messes up Itama’s hair as he walks by. “Maybe you should start being a morning person.”

“You’re my least favorite brother.”

Tobirama just laughs.

After breakfast (which is late morning, because Orochimaru is _very_ difficult to wake up when she doesn’t want to) they stand on the shore of the island and call to Hachibi-sama that they’re leaving.

 **So soon** , it says, emerging from the water. **I suppose you do have a job to do. Come and visit again. I have always enjoyed being a host. You have earned my interest, and my friendship—and my name. I’m Gyuuki. I will remember yours.**

“Are you kidding!” Itama blurts out. “It took Kyuubi-sama a year and a half to trust me enough to tell me its name!”

“Kyuubi-sama told you its name?” Orochimaru hisses—Hachibi-sama is laughing again.

**I would expect nothing less. While we are here, you should use my name. I don’t give gifts to watch them sit unused. Travel safely, and when you introduce yourselves to my sibling you may want to bring her a gift too.**

“Thank you, Gyuuki-sama,” says Tobirama. “We will go.”

**Itama. Orochimaru. Tobirama. Farewell.**

Hachi—Gyuuki-sama sinks beneath the surface without a ripple, leaving Itama’s party to walk across the calm lake. It’s finally gotten warm, but the air still has a little bite. The sun is bright, there’s just a little wind, and the trees on the slopes of the mountains all around are turning red and gold. It seems like a good omen.

“Nibi-sama’s territory is far to the northeast,” says Tobirama. He has the largest sensing range of any of them, so they turn their right side to the sun and start running through the mountains.

It’s another two days before Yarera tells them they’re properly in Nibi-sama’s territory. And Itama can feel it. Not only is Nibi-sama’s chakra getting stronger, but there is a feeling of being watched. It makes him uneasy, although certainly a god has the right to keep an eye on trespassers. Whoever is watching them watches them spend a whole day carefully shaping a miniature copy of the Yamanaka temple to the death god from glass that Tobirama makes with his lightning release. So the gift won’t really be a surprise, but Itama hopes she’ll like it anyway. He has no idea what to give a god except effort—he wouldn’t even know what to give Kyuubi-sama, and he’s known it for a long time. Maybe a comb or brush made out of something rare, or a musical instrument.

Nibi-sama lives high up in a pass between two mountains. It’s cold in the way that there’s snow on the ground, and as they approach the place that must be sacred to her it only grows colder—except it’s not a cold Itama feels on his skin, but as if it’s radiating from inside his bones.

The path is suddenly blocked by a wall of roaring blue flame, and Itama nearly falls off of Yarera’s back. “Um, hello? Nibi-sama?”

Out of the fire walks a… well, a perfectly cat-sized cat. That also happens to be on fire. And if he looks past its flat, luminous eyes he can see that it has two tails, which it curls in front of its feet as it sits down.

Nibi-sama’s physical size doesn’t seem to diminish her voice, though. **Humans. Very bold of you to come here to Death’s doorstep. I hope you are prepared to die.**

“We’re messengers,” says Itama. “Sort of. We brought you a gift, so please hear us out.”

Tsusa sets down the glass temple, which it has been carrying on its back. The little cat gets up to inspect it and sticks her nose inside, which is way too much like a normal cat who is not a god. **Amusing, at least. Speak. Why do you smell of two of my siblings? Why do you smell of the far south?**

“We come from the far south,” says Orochimaru, “and we come from your siblings, Kyuubi-sama and Gyuuki-sama. If you’ll permit it we would like to get rid of your human problem.”

“Through diplomacy,” Itama adds, because just due to Orochimaru’s general aura it sounds like she’s offering to kill them.

“Through diplomacy, yes.”

**I don’t have a human problem. You are referring to the fools who think that if they hunt me long enough they will catch me? I don’t consider them worth worrying over.**

After a pause, during which Itama quietly panics and curses godly pride, Tobirama says, “Gyuuki-sama said his oxen were also being hunted. If you don’t want our service then we can at least talk to the humans in that territory.”

Nibi-sama’s tails lash against the ground for a moment and she narrows her moonlike eyes. No-one speaks. Finally she says, **My servants, too, have been hunted. Humans think them wild beasts. Show me your ability, sons of Ashura.**

And the flames that defined the form of the cat lick up into the air and vanish, like there was never anything under them to begin with. The wall of cold blue fire across the path is still there, as is the glass temple. Itama looks around, up at the mountain to his right and then the one to his left across the gorge. “Um, if anyone’s there, and you want to show us who’s been hunting you? That would be really helpful. Thanks.” More quietly he says to Yarera, “Let’s go back down, I guess.”

No cats appear to tell them which humans are the bad ones, so without any other direction they go to the nearest human settlement, in the foothills to the east. And there outside of the town Itama stops, unsure how to approach the problem. If this really is a town that hunts sacred spirits, riding up on enormous foxes might get _them_ hunted. Not that they can’t defend themselves, but it’s not exactly a great start to diplomacy.

He isn’t really paying attention when he hears noises behind him, so he’s quite surprised when Orochimaru walks in front of him and, without turning around, reaches back one hand to flick him in the forehead. “Stop frowning. You’ll give yourself a headache. I’ll take care of this. You’re welcome to come, Tobirama.”

“Why am I not welcome to come, then?” Itama grumbles, although he already knows.

“ _You_ cannot hide your affiliation to the nine gods, any more than you can pretend to be the kind of person who would hunt cats.” At this point she does look back at him, with a small cruel smile on her face. “I have plenty of practice being despicable, and I’m sure your brother could pull it off if he tried. See you in a few hours,” she says, and lifts a hand, and begins to walk down the hill.

Itama stares after her, lost for words and confusedly flushed. “A-are—are you going to go with her, Tobirama?”

“I suppose someone has to keep her out of trouble.” He turns around to see Tobirama slide off Chuyo’s back. His brother puts a hand on his shoulder for a moment and then says, “Lie low nearby. Maybe you’ll find some spirits to talk to after all.”

Itama scowls but doesn’t object as the foxes lead the way to a hollow in the hills. He’s never going to be able to talk to humans. Nobody will ever listen to him because he’s nothing without the foxes, he might as well _actually_ be half-spirit. He’s not human in any way that counts. He throws himself off Yarera’s back and onto the hillside to hide his face in his crossed arms. Satta curls up by his side and lays its head across his back. He appreciates the comfort, but having no-one to comfort him except sacred fox spirits is _exactly_ the problem.

Some unknown while later Satta suddenly jumps up and snarls. Itama sits up, looking around with a pounding heart, but nothing is there.

“Don’t antagonize them, child,” says Chuyo. “If you’re so easy to rile they’ll only tease you.”

“The cats are here?” asks Itama.

“Keeping their distance,” Yarera confirms. “They’re not going to help, they just want to see what we do.”

Satta flops back onto Itama’s legs, pouting. “Big Brother’s cat is friendly.”

“These cats are _dead_ ,” says Yarera. Its chakra has the same feeling as when a human is rolling their eyes. “Spirit cats are totally different. Anyone would think you’re two years old instead of fifty.”

Spirit cats seem to be able to erase their chakra, if not their smell, so Itama can’t tell where they are except by looking at where Satta’s nose is pointing. By the time Orochimaru and Tobirama come back, Itama has gotten very bored with waiting and started to play tag with the foxes, and the sun is setting.

“We have information,” says Orochimaru. Chuyo drops lightly to the ground and comes over to her with Itama, and the other foxes follow. “In a town to the west, Ishigai, there’s a minor lord whose guards hunt cats for sport. The local legend is that the cats come back to life even angrier and try to take revenge. One would think that the solution would be to stop killing cats, but what do I know?”

“Let’s go, then,” says Itama.

“The sun is setting,” Tobirama observes. Itama gives him a look that says: _so?_ “We have been travelling all day and we will not make it to Ishigai before true nightfall. If your plan is to appear as a diplomat, midnight is not the time to do it.”

Itama looks away and slumps over, like he’s just mad. But it’s really to hide it when he briefly projects himself into Chuyo’s mind to say: we’re going once they’re asleep.

So there is a bit of rebellion in you after all, says Chuyo.


End file.
